Hello,
This is the first of two 1/48 Hasegawa Bf 109 subjects I will be building in tandem. I know Eduard certainly has the "definitive" F through G 109, but I still have a fondness for the old Hasegawa kit and it's much cheaper. Besides, I still have 5 in the stash. Improvements will involve some PE belts and a touch of minor scratcbuilding. I also hope to try some of the AK weathering stuff I tried out on my tank here, but I wont get too crazy with it.
The subject will be Max Ostermann's F-4 (top subject below) from JG 54 on the Eastern Front. Ostermann was a 102 kill ace before he was shot down and KIA by a Soviet LaGG-3 in August of 1942. I read that Ostermann was so short that he needed blocks strapped to the rudder pedals to reach them. These weren't roomy to begin with........yikes!
I started with the cockpit. It's weak out of the box and I usually replace it. I have discovered that once painted up this scale, it's passible. One of my biggest beefs with Hasegawa here was their omission of the prominent starboard fuel line. I added it with fine solder and styrene.
I used Gunze RLM 66 for paint. I added an old Eduard PE set for seat belt, which goes a long way to spruce up the interior. I threw a placard on the cannon cover too.
The instrument panel was out of the box, with the addition of Airscale instrument decals. These work great.
A test fit. Not too shabby.
Both together.........I'm trying to be efficient.
I closed the fuselage then one of the problem areas of the kit rears it's ugly head.....the fit of the nose pieces. These fit like crapola. I'll get to fixing this next.
