Savoia Marchetti SM79 JIS / JRS B & JRS B1 - Azur FRROM 1:72

[woody37]

Savoia Marchetti SM79 JIS / JRS B & SM79 JRS B1

Azur 1:72

Kit FR004 - SM 79 JIS/JRS B

Kit FR005 - SM 79 JRS B1

This famous trimotor Italian workhorse started out as a proposed passenger aircraft in the mid 30’s. With a good pre-war performance, it was also envisaged to be capable of air racing and did in fact set several air speed records in 1935. It was constructed out of wood and metal, with a wooden wing including the spars with a welded steel tubular frame, plywood and duralumin fuselage. Powered by three Alfa Romeo radials of 780hp, the aircraft could endure at over 220mph and had good low speed handling thanks to the flaps and slats fitted to the wings. Indeed, it could land in 200m and take off in just 300m! The aircraft took a crew of 5 or 6 of whom it was popular with and operated in the bomber and torpedo role. The SM.79 first saw combat in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War and went on to serve with several air forces including the RAF in the Middle East.

In 1937 Romania ordered a twin-engine version of the SM.79 to serve with the Aeronautica Regala Romania. An initial order for 24 aircraft powered by 1000hp Gnome-Rhone Mistral radial engines proved to be underpowered so a new power plant was sourced in the guise of the Junkers Jumo 211 engine with 1200 hp. The first 8 aircraft were built in Italy as the JIS.79B (JIS standing for Jumo Italia Savoia, B standing for Bimotor), however subsequent aircraft were license built in Romania. This included the JRS 79B (R indicating Romanian built) and the JRS 79B1 which had the more powerful Jumo 211F engines of 1380hp. As well as having only two engines, the cockpit arrangement was changed from a side-by-side arrangement to a tandem set up. Production continued in Romania until 1946 with 72 license built machines being produced in total. Romanian combat was initially against the Soviet Union, but as the war progressed, attention was turned to Germany and its allies.

The kit
Presented in a top opening box that judging from our review samples seems to be the standard for their newer kits, you are welcomed by three bags, one containing f grey sprues, one containing the clear parts and one containing the resin supplements. These kits were first released in 2009. First impressions are of a very good quality limited run kit; typical of such kits is a lack of location pins. Surface detail across the kit is a mixture of fine recessed panel lines for the metallic & plywood area and subtle raised fabric effect where it would be stretched across the stringers along the fuselage sides. They have got the effect spot on in my opinion given the scale we are dealing with. The instruction booklet comes in an A5 folded form with text in English, French and Romanian. Whilst the parts on the sprues aren’t numbered, there are suitable drawings in the booklet giving the part numbers to refer to. Paint references are to Gunze colours. The assembly diagrams are quite straight forwards to follow and include where to fit the rigging & aerials wires if you choose to fit them.

Assembly starts with the interior of the aircraft. The tubular steel framework is represented on the interior of the fuselage halves and is more than adequate for the scale considering what will be seen once closed up. The interior is very well catered for with the tandem cockpit, nose area, rear gun and rear fuselage areas getting suitable attention to the detail fairy! Using a wash when painting the interior will give much opportunity to reveal the detail in most places. Unfortunately, there is no option to have the rear facing gunner position open immediately behind the cockpit which would show off some of the interior detail; however I’m sure this could be done by cutting out the sliding panels and replacing with some thin sheet plastic bent to the correct profile to simulate them in the opened position. As there are no location pins, I’d strongly suggest plenty of dry fitting as you build up the interior to ensure that it all goes together as planned.

With the fuselage closed up, the tail planes and rudder go on next. The tail planes are secured by two struts below for each side; however there is no locating tab so making your own out of some thin steel rod would be advisable. This is the type of thing that would differentiate the kit from being suitable for beginners.

There are a lot of windows on this aircraft. The glazed nose comes supplied in two halves which inevitably leaves a seam down the middle to take care of, so care will need to be taken to get this assembled without glue marks. The JRS B1 kit (FR005) only has one nose type, although both boxings come with the same clear sprue containing two options. The earlier JIS variant contained in set FR004 utilises the second option. Apart from the nose seam as just mentioned, the clear parts are thin and free from distortion. Many kits that provide side windows suffer from concave profiles resulting from the moulding process, but the windows in these kits are beautifully flat. A quick attempt at locating one of the windows into the rear fuselage indicated that some fettling will be required to get them to fit, however a snug fit should be achievable as a result.

The wings are a straight forwards affair and the wing spars are simulated by plastic strips that sit within the gear bays before joining the top and bottom parts together. The full wing section fits into t5he completed fuselage section. The gear bays are quite basic other than the wing spars, so you may choose to add some detail in here.

With the wings on, the next major assembly is the engines. The cowlings are simply two halves with the exhausts attached. Again, detail in the surfaces and the exhausts are very refined. The large radiator housings are mounted below the cowlings and have resin radiators that locate inside. The undercarriage mounts across the wing spars inside the gear bays. I suspect these will be fiddly to assemble as the trailing links don’t have locating pins to attach them to the main legs, so patience and your best set of tweezers will be necessary here. The gear doors are lacking in any interior detail. What the real items looked like, I couldn’t say, but you may want to add some creative detail through scribing or plastic strip to add some interest. Finally the props are added. These come moulded as complete units that then sit on a back plate with the hub fitted over the top. Good photos of these variants are few and far between. If they had the same props as the Ju-87, the leading edge roots of the props where they enter the hubs look a little too straight, but this could be corrected (or at least improved) by filing the plastic away if it bothered you. Someone may be able to comment on this better than I can.

Decals
The decals are printed by Aviprint. Register of the colours is excellent and the colours vivid. The decals have a glossy finish to them. The schemes included are as follows:

Kit FR004 – SM.79 JIS / JRS B

• JIS 79B ‘155’ - ‘Yolanda’, Escadrila 71, Grupul 1 Bombardament, Stalingrad, October 1942
• JRS 79B ‘4’ – Escadrila 75, Grupul 2 Bombardament, gruparea Aeriana de Lupta, July 1941
• JRS 79B ‘134’ – Escadrila 72, Grupul 1 Bombardament, October 1942
• JIS 79B ‘120’, summer 1942

Kit FR005 – SM.79 JRS B1

• ‘216’ – Trencin, Slovakia – April 1945 – Dark Green
• ‘154’ - Trencin, Slovakia – April 1945 – Dark Green
• ‘219’ – Markings prior to coup 23^rd August 1944 – dark green / light brown / light blue camouflage

Conclusion
These are very fine kits and great to see such unusual variants being produced. Due to the limited run features, they aren’t kits for beginners; care has to be taken with some of the inherent features such as lack of locating pins if this is something new to you. It would of been good to have the rear gunner position with an optional 'open' position from the box, but this shouldn't be too difficult to scratch build. The quality of the moulding is excellent and with average skills a stunning and rare model may be built.

Review sample courtesy of

[Learstang]

Another nice review of what appears to be a nice kit of an unusual subject. Another one for my ever-growing Eastern Front collection!

Regards,

Jason

[stevehnz]

Am I the only one that can't see the picchers here? I'd really like to be able to.

Steve.

[woody37]

They're showing on my phone Steve so no probs with the site

[stevehnz]

Ok, thanks for that, for some reason they're back tonight. Thw wonders of the interweb never fail to amaze me! It looks like a nice enough model, but hell, these are ugly beasts, the tri motor is quite a pretty plane to my eye, not so these. Thanks for the review anyway.

Steve.

Edited May 20, 2013 by stevehnz