Scale Plastic & Rail

1/32 Messerschmitt Bf 109F-4

1/32 Messerschmitt Bf 109F-4
Trumpeter
Catalogue # 02292
Available from Hobby Link Japan for around £36 (¥4,800)

 

 

 

This kit will be evaluated on what we see, and no pre-conceived ideas. If there are elements of this kit which are sloppy in their execution, then I’ll say. I’m no expert on the 109, but it is one of my favourite aircraft, and I’ll judge it on what I know, plus my own meagre references, and see if this is indeed a good or bad kit.

Trumpeters kit is presented on the following:

As well as Trumpeters usual standard of easy to follow computer drawn instructions, a glossy two-sided sheet showing each of the three colour schemes, and stencil/decal layouts, is also presented. The whole package comes in quite a smallish box which is completely filed with the sprues. The photo etch and transparencies are included with a separate compartment within the box, and all sprues are individually bagged.

Nowhere on the sprues can I find any levels of flash what are even worth mentioning. It’s pretty much non-existent. Parts are cleanly moulded with very little in the way of seam marks that need to be eradicated. Moulding quality is as good as the best Trumpeter releases I’ve seen.

There is a minor problem with ejector pin marks though. These mostly concern the inside of the engine cowlings and in the whole, they are ‘positive’ marks, more needing sanding down than filling in. Some are in awkward areas within the cowl, so some patience and nifty sanding work will be required to totally eliminate them.

With regards to the old chestnut of rivets and panel lines, if you look at a lot of Luftwaffe machines, they had flush riveting. Looking at my 109 references, this looks to be the case for the 109F. With this in mind, you are probably best dampening the kit rivets down with a coat of Mr Surfacer, or similar. The riveting on this kit is a tad more subtle than some Trumpeter releases, however. Panel lines though are crisply defined and only present where appropriate. There does appear to be some digression between the kit though, and what is supposed to be present. This applies to the 4 lines of rivets on the inboard side of the upper wing, before the first panel line. My 109 refs show this as 5 lines. With those same references, most panel lines and rivets do seem to fall where they are supposed to be, and with that, access panels too. We’ll come back to access panels shortly. My conclusion with riveting and panel lining is that it is close to the 109F refs I have, and therefore, with a little work, should be more than presentable. There are a couple of minor bumps and bulges on the surface of the fuselage which simply should not be there. As these are small solid bumps, then can be shaved off with a knife or chisel, with no ill effect.

As an aside, the internal rear fuselage interior also has former and stringer detail included. This is quite rudimentary, and pretty identical to the same detail on the Me 262 kit. It is a good base to start from, and if you decide to show the rear access panel open, the vision afforded will mean that this moulded detail should be pretty sufficient.

Right, those access panels. My references show that mostly they are accurate and in the correct position. Anomalies lie around the erroneous port just fore of the tailwheel, on the port side fuselage. My refs show no such port. There is also supposed to be a circular port just below the canopy entrance, on the port hand side. This appears to be missing on the kit. Also, a small scoop just in front of the engine cowling, and behind the spinner, is present on the kit. This is not showing on my refs.

Errors shouldn’t be present on this Type when relevant documentation is present, but they are easy to correct. The overall outline of the model itself appears to be very good and typical ‘F’ variant.

None of my references of this variant show squared off wheel wells. This kit though, does have these. (EDIT: I am informed that some early machines DID have these shape wells, but check your refs for your individual machine) These are indicative of a ‘G’ variant, and I find that bemusing. If Trumpeter are guilty of any crime with this kit, then this would be it. It will take a little carefully worked plasticard and some surgery to the wheel well vertical walls, to fix this. Trumpeter, please check your refs next time! The undercarriage bay oleo wells are quite well executed, and with the removal of a little plastic which covers what would be an open orifice, then I would be more than happy with these. The underside of the top wing surfaces have detail moulded on them for the wheel well ‘bottom’, and this is well executed also.

Let’s move over to the engine area, and while we are in this area, take a look at the air intake scoop. Some 109 experts ay this is vastly underscale. I don’t think it is. If I lie the parts over my 1/32 plans, they seem to correspond very well. Looks ok to me!

What about the engine though? I have heard that this is undersize too. I think if you look at the photos of the test shot which were taken at a Toy Fair, you could assume that to be the case, but something is amiss with that photo. The model simply doesn’t look complete. There seems to be only a semi completed engine under that hood in that picture. You can also see that the rear wall behind the pilot is missing too, so we can’t take that photograph to be indicative of this final, released kit. The 109F had a DB601E engine, and my references show this to be a good representation of this powerplant, and in no real way ‘undersize’, perhaps except to allow the engine to be replicated under non-scale thickness cowlings. This isn’t uncommon, and Trumpeter have done nothing wrong in this respect. Only Tamiya with their amazingly thin cowls on their far more expensive Spitfire kit, have achieved anything close to what should be. I have also seen suggestions that the engine doesn’t look like a DB601. Sorry, again, to me, it DOES look like a DB601, and is a more than passable representation. This kit also includes the MG which fires through the spinner hub too! The rear of this MG also protrudes into the cockpit and it accurately covered by the gun cowl.

I do feel that there is an issue with the starboard engine bearer. The bearer on the port side is shaped to fit around the supercharger intake, but Trumpeter have also seen fit to produce a mirror image of this for the starboard side. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t how it was.

Exhaust stubs are supplied as individual parts and are beautifully hollowed out. You will need NO aftermarket items here.

Onto the cockpit, and we can see that the design has a cockpit wall insert for the starboard side, but not the port side. Very strange. However, detail within the cockpit is very good as it is, out of the box, and is a respectable representation if you are not into using aftermarket sets. Trumpeter have given us the option of using either a plastic seat tub, or an included photo etch one. Seatbelts are supplied on the etch fret also, as are the rudder pedals. The instrument panel is a very good representation too and it composed of the front facia and a clear piece installed from behind, incorporating the actual instrument faces. The instruments themselves though have no detail and I would suggest using either the kit decal IP instruments, individually applied, or something like the MDC Luftwaffe instrument decals.

The fuselage MG area looks a little sparse and could do with a little TLC, plus I would suggest the MG’s themselves have their barrels exchanged for brass ones.

Also included within the kit is the fuselage fuel tank which is shaped to correspond with the cockpit seating area as it sits both just underneath the pilot and in the area directly behind him. Detail is good, but would benefit from the removal of the fuel line in moulded plastic, and being replaced with wire.

The cockpit canopy is very well moulded in transparency, shape and detail. The pilots armoured headrest is made from photo etch, with the cushioning in plastic. The forward edge of the canopy is also to be faced with a strip of photo etch which gives rivet detail. The latch is included in plastic, and the framing rods and canopy-opening cable attach points are from photo etch.

A single centre line fuel tank with photo etch strap, plus ETC rack are also included.

The two under-wing MG pods also very closely resemble those on my references too, and I can see no real issue with these.

The photo etch frets are very well manufactured and have their sides protected by a very thin film of self-adhesive plastic. I do like this approach. This kit also has vinyl tyres. Love them or loathe them, these are very well made with no ugly sprue gates. They do have a seam which is so very fine that it will take no time at all to remove. The detail on the tyres is very good and indicative of a 109F. The only problem is that the tyres aren’t ‘weighted’. This could be done without too much work though, or you may opt for an aftermarket solution.

Decals are supplied on 2 sheets; one carrying individual unit markings and national markings, and the other predominantly stencils. All printing is crisp and in perfect register, and the colours look authentic. The decals are also nice and thin too. You are given the choice of three machines, and these are:

So what do we think?

This is a very good kit, despite its shortcomings. I feel there is nothing on this kit which can’t be ‘fixed’ in the name of total accuracy, and most of it can be very easily fixed within minutes. The wheel well shape is the only real ‘major’ issue here, and it you set aside an afternoon of modelling, which is what I presume we are….’modellers’, then this can also be fixed. Highly recommended.

Overall: 8/10

 

Our sincere thanks to the good folk at Hobby Link Japan for sending us this item for review.


To see a build of this kit on the Large Scale Planes (LSP) website, click THIS link.