Bf 109 G-10 1/72

What the new kit offers

When I submitted an article about the 72nd scale Mustang kit and its benefits to modelers, I was not reprimanded for it, and on the back of it I promised that if the opportunity arose and I was asked, I would write something else similar. Little did I know that the opportunity would arise the very next month and that I would be asked almost immediately. I understood right from the get go that it would not be so easy and that it would be better to stick to the spirit of a famous quote from an equally famous play. How can I write something that will differ from the previous article in more than just the name of the kit? I thought about it for three weeks, put together two Bf 109 G-10s in the meantime and one other Messerschmitt from a competitor to have some comparison and benchmark of quality, value and the like. The third in the party was the Japanese Bf 109 G-6, but that's okay. While building two G-10 kits, I found two minor errors, one on the molding and one in the instructions. The result of my efforts and thinking is the following writeup.

 There really isn't much to add to the kit and its construction either compared to the Mustang or compared to the previous ‘109s. In terms of every aspect, it is very much an Eduard kit. The plastic sprues are cleanly molded and the parts fit together perfectly. The first kits from the series of Bf 109 F/G/K in 1:72nd, the Bf 109 F and G-2/G-4 had one questionable part from this point of view in the gun troughs for the fuselage machine guns, which were glued separately into openings in the engine cowl on each fuselage half. The designers stuck to this solution, already used on the 1:48th scale kits. They had a pretty good reason for that, keeping the engine cover compact. But the problem is that this created a complex parting line on the mold along the contour line of the openings for the troughs in the engine cover, which is also the contact plane for gluing the parts together. Any imperfection in the molding here causes a problem with the parts fitting together. And, unfortunately, that’s what happened, even though we played with the fine tuning of the mold for a really long time, we even redid the inserts for the Bf 109 F and adjusted the technological process of mold production for the G-2 and G-4. This helped, but many modelers and reviewers continue to report a problem with this aspect of the kit. For the Bf 109 G-6 and G-10, the approach has been altered, with the upper part of the nose with the gun troughs is glued as a separate part into the hole in the upper part of the fuselage.

 The problem with the alignment of the gun troughs is solved by using this method, but on the other hand, it results in a visible joint between the fuselage halves and panel that contains the troughs. It was not a feature on the real plane, so on the model the line needs to be lightly puttied and sanded. It's no Grand Canyon, it's a line in the order of a fraction of a millimeter that looks just like an engraved line on the assembly. If you don't cut into the plastic somewhere or damage the part, you won't be able to putty much, unless you really want to be absolutely historically and technically accurate. In that case, on the Erla and Messerschmitt models, you can putty the access cover to the compressed air cylinder for the MK 108 fuselage gun in front of the fifth fuselage bulkhead on the right side of the fuselage, which was only present on the Bf 109 G-10/U4, the WNF machines. There is no need to putty the joint between the fuselage and the vertical fin, which is glued in the same way as the Bf 109 F and G, as well as the Mustang...just inserting it inbetween the fuselage halves before they are glued together. In fact, this part does not even need to be glued in place at all, just inserted between the fuselage halves just before they are cemented together. The fin pulls itself into the correct position and locks in place. Similarly, the undercarriage legs settle into their correct position. These are again glued into a tunnel in the wheel wells that creates a housing for the pins located on the landing gear leg that seats them in the correct position.

 There is even no need to putty the joint between the wing assembly and the fuselage. At its trailing edge, the joint connects to the engraving of the fuselage bulkhead and, after installing the wing in the fuselage, creates a line of width identical to the width of the panel line. This is actually one of the innovations employed since the 48th scale kit, where the joint between the wing and fuselage was a constant target of criticism. The same can be said of the older solid position lights. In the 72nd scale kit, these are transparent and separate items. By the way, this is an element that we included in the kits at the request of modelers and reviewers. We didn't really want to get into the separate position lights. I myself was against it for a long time, because I considered it, and still do, a difficult element that complicates the construction of the model, and offers no major advantage when considering the additional construction complexity. Even separating the part from the frame and cleaning the sprue gate is a demanding operation for me, requiring strong nerves and a steady hand. I'm nervous doing that, and at least one of those slippery little buggers are guaranteed to escape the grip of my tweezers and disappear into the oblivion of the cosmos. Irreversible. I've never found one of these after the fact. However, I'm not lamenting and you shouldn't be lamenting either, you got what you wanted. Most of you, anyway. To make things a little easier for you, you have spare lights on the clear sprue. Who else will do that for you?

 I consider the wing solution to be the highlight of this kit, especially when it comes to its design. It is completely separate, and allows the control surfaces to be positioned. For the Bf 109 G, this means separate slats on the leading edge, and on the trailing edge, the ailerons, flaps and radiator flaps. I understand that this element may appear to some as controversial and a complication of assembly, but I can assure you that this is not the case. All these parts fit absolutely perfectly, they have few sprue gates, and gluing this whole assembly in place is easy even for beginners. I understand that due to our release schedule surrounding the Royal Class and Limited Edition kits, the former in a Dual Combo boxing, with two sets of molds and covering a number of subtypes with different combinations of details, these kits seem complex. The instructions are complex and require a thorough familiarization. But if you also take into consideration the later editions, namely the Profipack and especially Weekend releases, then there is nothing dramatically complicated about these kits, which can be considered pretty typical for 72nd scale. Yes, unlike the competition, the kit has a unique wing dynamic, which means some six extra parts. However, I do not consider it unreasonable, and certainly not impossible, to make a kit today, even in this scale, with not offering the option of lowered flaps. I am quite sure that we would then record the same frequency of complaints about the outdated concept of the kit, as we now record about its perceived and constantly justified complexity.

 One of the essential attributes of our kits is the large number of alternative parts. It is in them because we create complete lines of subtypes of selected aircraft, and that simply cannot be done without alternative part options. This is the essence of the technical development of every type of machine used over a longer span of service career, not only aircraft. It is no longer well possible to complete this development with one or two versions out of many. After all, we have worked for many years to ensure that our kits map the development of individual types of aircraft in this way. In theory, we could divide the alternative parts into several smaller frames and put only the one correct frame in the kit of a specific subtype and thus save on plastic that would otherwise be thrown away later. But if you take the time to study the technical development of a historically significant aircraft, which you have a great opportunity to do in this issue of our newsletter, you will find that thanks to the interweaving of the characteristics of many development and production versions, it would actually be one helluva road map. So, in the interest of preserving the sanity of all kit designers, to say nothing of those who package the kits, we just do it the way we do it. I believe it's called logistics. In the case of the Bf 109 G-10, this means that I used 68 parts from the kit to build one Bf 109 G-10 WNF and had 104 left over. This includes small parts that are duplicated or tripled in the kit to account for parts that going flying off in some direction from tweezers that had just that much more pressure applied to them than they should have. Now that I've written it like that, I'm wondering if I counted the unused parts correctly. But that’ll be a right ballpark figure. In short, don't worry about it. Just keep the rest of the parts in your spares box, which is a lot better than being an environmental terrorist and throwing them in a river for the fish to wonder what the hell’s going on. They can be used, ultimately, to spruce up older kits that are not quite up to the same standard, such as the aforementioned Bf 109 G-6. So, despite all the ecologists, I still believe that no carp or whale has yet died as a result of eating the rest of the plastic from a kit, and I simply believe that model makers will never voluntarily throw any plastic part out. The fact that something falls under the table and is instantly pounced upon by the carpet bastard is another story, as we all know.

 In recent years, the assessment of construction kits in the media has visibly shifted to a focus on the plastic. As if there was nothing else interesting about the kit, as if its value and quality were determined solely by the quality of the plastic parts. But when I watch the behavior of modelers working their way through the racks of kits at shows and take note of what they are interested in first when looking at the box, it is almost never the plastic. The first thing most modelers are interested in is color schemes. They look at them, study them, and then only briefly examine the plastic. That's how it's always been, and that's how it always will be. Camouflage, markings, pilots, preferably some aces and the action depicted on the box art, are the things that interest, entertain and attract modelers. That's what always comes first! Not every manufacturer understands this; that's why most kits have an average of three marking options, and often only two and not very imaginative ones at that. They are often many times repeated markings and very often simple schemes. One is sometimes more colorful, with some kind of emblem or nose art, and the rest is something simpler. It’s sort of like dangling that proverbial carrot before the donkey without getting him too excited. This style stagnated the nineties with heavy boredom, exactly what we do not intend to do. As I wrote last time in the article about the Mustang, the world is evolving, and even the modeler is looking for some enjoyment. Anyone who regularly follows Eduard knows where to find it.

 There are ten marking options in the initial Royal Class Bf 109 G-10 kit. These cover not just German versions….four of them are for foreign users. They are aircraft of the Hungarian, Italian and Croatian air forces, and the fourth non-German machine is a post-war Czechoslovak Avia S-99. Probably the most striking is the Croatian bird, which also has an interesting history behind it. Not that the other options are worse off, but the Croatian one is a bit of a breath of fresh air. Decals are ours, the so-called ‘peelable’ ones. I will remind you for the one hundred and sixtieth time that peeling is optional, strictly voluntary, decals provide the same quality performance without peeling off the carrier film. If there is anyone reading this who still has an aversion to our decals, please give them a chance. For example, here in the Royal Class kit, there is such a large sheet of decals that it would be a shame not to learn how to work with them using spares. It just takes training, practice and want. After all, you can't even peel an egg without it, so what are you waiting for??

 In this series of late Bf 109s, we have a set of molds for five subtypes: the Bf 109 G-6/AS, the Bf 109 G-14/AS, the Bf 109 G-10/R6 (Erla), Bf 109 G-10 (Messerschmitt), and the Bf 109 G-10/U4 (WNF). We will release them gradually in different editions over the next two years or so. The entire series of 72nd Bf 109 F/G/Ks will be completed next year with the Bf 109 K-4. I believe that you will not be intimidated by their perceived complexity and that you will have royal fun building them, because, if I say so myself, Royal Class equals Royal Fun!

Happy Modelling!