Revell's He-219 Uhu

Real G

I should not be starting yet another project, but this one just snuck up on me on New Year's Eve.  This is Revell's huge 1/32 He-219, which has recieved much withering fire on the Internet over a number of issues.  Okay, yeah, I see all of the snags, but it still looks like a Uhu at the end of the day, so here goes.

The parts do show some flash, and all parts require some clean up with a knife and sandpaper.  The fuselage and wings feel a little floppy due to their thickness.  There are a bunch of weird contour irregularites, due to the CAD engineerng I believe, which I will touch upon as the affected parts come up during assembly.

Here are the major airfame parts rubber banded together.  It is a big beast!

First order of business is to identiify the annoying ejector pin marks that will need to be eliminated.  Fortunately, there are not too many on this kit.  The two in the cockpit may not be critical, as I have found out that the instrument panel covers them - drats, wasted some Mr. Surfacer 500.  Note that a section of sprue has been left on the windscreen frame, to provide some protection during initial construction.

The other four are in the main wheel bays, which also have nacelle seam lines that will be a doozy to fill without losing detail.  A pain in the you-know-where, but doable.

I slapped the stabilizers and fins together to see how they fit.  The heater intake on the starboard stabilizer is kind of gappy, but Mr. Surfacer takes care of that.

The trailing edges of the stabilizers where they meet the fuselage have a contour mismatch.  I am not sure if the real plane had this, but I doubt it.  I''ll look at the 1/48 Tamiya kit to see what went wrong here.

BTW, all the control surfaces are moveable, although I have no idea why.  My rudders and elevators are all nice and floppy, but smarter people could simply cut off the mounting pins and glue the control surfaces in afterwards.  I just did it to see if it could be done.

For now, my only planned mods are as follows:

- Add aftermarket seat belts.

- Add brake lines to landing gear.

-  Recontour propeller blade faces (unless someone comes up with a resin set for under $20.).

As always, advice and input are welcomed!

 

 

Unusual and rare are good! Sometimes I get tired of seeing yet another P-51 or Me-109.

I have this kit in my stash and until now was unaware of any problems with the kit. When I build I will do a OOB build. I also have the ZM on pre-order already.

ZM have announced that there will be a delay as they are re-making the canopy moulds as they think that the original kit moulds were not quite right. You can read all about it on ZM's blog here,

http://www.zoukeimura.co.jp/en/sentiment/oyajiblog_038.html

The delay should only be a couple of weeks, but kudos to ZM for trying their best to give us a correct UHU. I myself am looking forwards to getting my hands on this having seen the real kit at Telford.

I think that it would be interesting to compare the outline of the two kits and see how they differ. Maybe when Revell realised that ZM were going to release the UHU too they decided to cut a few R&D corners and get it out onto the market before ZM.

I was hoping myself that Revell would produce a 1/32 Dornier Do17 Flying Pencil to go along with the JU88 and HE111 and provide the modelling community with the three main German bomber types used during the BoB.

Never mind. I suppose that we will get one eventually but I am Happy that unusual and rare aircraft are being offered to modellers. It gives us pleasure and when we build them right, something for visitors to stare at and ask "Where did you get that from?"

James

Those are the issues i had heard about the Revell kit. When it comes to 32nd, i am not after kits with all the insides that you can't see, or the engines on show. I am still not 100% decided yet, but the issues with the Revell kit are enough to be pushing me towards ZM. But i will see.

Bish,

Most of the kit's problems are funadamental contour issues, and it seem that the nacelles are too low relative to the wing and have an incorrect thrust line.  Most of these problems are very difficult to fix, but I can easily ignore them.  The whole nacelle issue is moot, as I'd have to carefully measure out all the relevant datum line points to see the problem, which I will never do.  The inkspot camouflage will basically obliterate all the rest of the problems, as you really can't see anything under the mottle, uinless you are looking for trouble!

I'll just fix a few things, like the propeller fronts and add knobs and levers to the cockpit.  If I'm in a good mood, I'll fix tthe landing gear compression and add brake lines.  Aside from the extensive clean up of mold lines on every single part, the kit will assemble easily.  Just the nit-pickers will get all bent out of shape fixing the details.  Well okay, I am a nit-picker, but life is getting too short to dwell on the little stuff.

The Zoukei-Mura He-219 will be astounding, no doubt, but personally I prefer just an airframe with good cockpit and landing gear detail.  I only built one model with the engines hanging out, and decided from then on I would not do it again.  I don't believe in the "it's cheaper so it's better" mantra, but in this case, $62 versus $190 settled it for me.

Sorry for not posting any progress pics, but I'm still cleaning up the parts.  (I am still nit-picky about that sort of thing.)

Really nice start on this. I have been hearing a few things about problems with this kit. That has put me off a bit and leading towards the ZM offering, but still not mad my mind up yet.

Really looking forward to seeing this come together.

No Monogram kit of this, but there is the Tamiya in 1/48, and1/72 kits have been done by, Revell, DML, Lindberg, and Frog.

Wow   thats a lot of weight!! Can't weight to see more.!

I build in a very haphazard way, so last night the subject of nose weight got my atttention.  I already know that the He-219 is a very tail heavy design, so I pulled out some R/C lead weights to see how much was going to be needed.  A couple of points to consider:  1. The farther up front the weight, the greater effect it will have on balance, and consequently result in less weight being required.  2. The blance point to aim for is not at the main wheel ground contact point, but just in front of it.  3. The common fallacy of the nose gear taking the additonal weight should be remembered; the poor mains will be taking all the additional weight.  4. Remember to add as much of the major parts of the model as you can for the balance test.  I intentionally leave off stuff forward of the C.G., just to add a little insurance.  I for one hate having to stuff lead into open nose gear bays after construction!

I started by placing weights behind the pilot's side consoles in an attempt to get as much lead up front as possible.  There isn't a lot of space in the narrow fuselage.  I will add more weight under the instrument shroud, as there is a nice concealed space there.

But weight, weight, there's more! 

The lead in the fuselage started to extend back to a point in line with the nacelle fronts, so I added 1/2 oz of lead to each nacelle.

Revell's instruction sheet recommends 70 grams of weight behind the aft cockpit bulkhead, but so far I have added 160 grams!  And the model is STILL not balancing in the right place!  But I'm almost there.  The model is kind of heavy now, and the main gear have these little mounting tabs that will be subjected to a lot of shear stress.  The struts have a couple of cut outs for the drag link, gear door bumper guards, etc,, and I am planning on shortening the oleos for a more compressed sit, so I 'm a little worried.

I really better get on with prepping and painting the cockpit so that the model can come together.

Off to a nice start ,will be watching this one for sure! cheers Trey