Here are entries seven and eight in my Year of the Axis Build, a pair of brother fighters that flew in the Regia Aeronautica, Macchi's MC.200 Saetta and MC.202 Folgore. The timing for these was perfect, having come off consecutive Luftwaffe subjects and needing a break from the splinter scheme so prevalent with Nazi aircraft.
I had actually attempted a Folgore earlier in this year, a 1/32 kit from 21st Century Toys, that turned out to be among the worst kits I've ever encountered. I never could get the wing dihedral to even think about forming - the wings on that thing looked like a 2x6. The quality of that kit was very much toy-like, so I opted to set it as a test platform and acquired these two kits instead.
Here are the kits:
Tamiya's Macchi MC.200 Saetta, 1/48
Hasegawa's Macchi MC.202 Folgore 1/48
That Hasegawa box art is among my all-time favorites. I've actually built this kit before, way back in the 1990s soon after I returned to the hobby, but that build was lost in a shelving collapse back in 2006. And after donating my Trumpeter SM.79 to the Lexington museum in Corpus Christi, Texas, three years ago, I was without any Italian aircraft in my collection.
A word on the Saetta - while it says Tamiya on the box, it is not a Tamiya mold; it is an Italeri mold. While the quality is decent, it is not up to Tamiya's current standards, or even their standards from 10 years ago. Panel lines are too deep, and parts fit is iffy in a couple of places, but nothing that a little hard work does not correct.
I chose a couple of truly difficult paint schemes for each of these. For the Saetta, I chose a bird that flew with 365a Squadriglia Autonoma CT out of Napoli in Italy, 1940. This one features mottled Italian sand, Italian dark olive green and Italian dark red brown. For the Folgore, I built a bird of the 153 Gruppo (no time frame or geographic association included in the instructions), but it featured the famous "smoke rings" that I was not accomplished enough to do back in the 90s but had always liked the look of this scheme.
Paints are a mix of Tamiya and Model Master enamels as well as a line of Life Color paints specific to Italian warbirds. I painted the white fuselage bands and the Italian cross on the rudders, but all other markings are kit decals, which were of good quality.
The Saetta's scheme was difficult in that I had to rememeber to control the airbrush - not too much air pressure, I think I had it set below 10psi, but it was still wont to spray too large a pattern. I had a few flub-ups that I had to fix right away. For the Folgore, I was delusional in my thinking that I could accomplish the smoke rings with the airbrush. The rings were far too thick for the two that I attempted. I ended up leaving those in place but doctoring them to the point that they are not real apparent beneath the weathering and decals. I used a fine tipped paint brush and put on my patience hat to draw each one of those rings across nearly the entire airframe.
I also utilized flat black paint for some of the prominent weathering (exhaust stains), as well as a Flory dark dirt wash, ground black pastels, and something new in my tool box - AK-Interactive streaking grime. I think I am really going to like that stuff, but I'm going to have to get the hang of its use. I quite likely over-did it on the Folgore; probably a finer tipped swab might have been of good use.
Both built up well, with only a few fit issues with the Saetta's cockpit and wheel well innards.
So how about some photographs?
First up, the Saetta:
Next up, the Folgore:
A couple of brothers in arms:
Next up for me is Tamiya's J1N1 Gekko, Allied-code name "Irving".