Bf 109E-3 Battle of Britain - ObLt. Priller - 1/48
Here's my take on this popular kit -- the 1/48 Eduard Profipack with no additional frills. And it's my first crack at a Battle of Britain 109. This project had a great combination of an attractive camo scheme, an interesting history and a well-known ace pilot.
ObLt Josef Priller is covered in just about every Luftwaffe reference book. He certainly got a lot of PR coverage during the war. At some point I'll build one of the many FW-190 aircraft he flew - perhaps the D-Day A-8. He ended up with 101 victories at war's end -- this plane reflects 22 victory marks on the tail.
I spent quite a bit of time trying to piece together the paint and marking history of this 109. There are quite a few reference photos of Wk Nr 5057 that show a progression of camo schemes through 1940 and 1941. My understanding is that it started life in the 65/70/71 splinter scheme, then the RLM 65 was extended higher up the sides of the fuselage. Later, RLM 02 & 71 mottling was added, including an extensive RLM 02 overspray pattern on the wings, followed by the addition of a yellow cowling and rudder. It appears that Eduard revised its profile in 2017, reducing the amount of cowling that was painted yellow. The original 2012 profile extended the yellow back to the windscreen.
In the end I decided to stick with the Eduard profile for the most part. Interestingly, all the photos I found suggest a white antenna mast, but none of the color profiles showed this. That was my main deviation from Eduard's profile.
It was mostly a drama-free build (thanks to some excellent references). I used Mission Models acrylics on this project and am generally very happy with them. Unfortunately there was not much contrast between the RLM 70 and 71 once the clearcoats and weathering was done. I should have lightened up the RLM 71 a bit before applying. I'm pleased with the result, but certainly realize that weathering is my next frontier for learning.
In the photos below, I included some shots of Priller's original plane for comparison. I also used the "focus stacking" technique on a few of the images to get the right perspective with a clean image. Enjoy the photos and thanks for reading!
