Giorgio N Posted April 8, 2017 Share Posted April 8, 2017 It took me a while to finally decide what to build for this GB. I considered subjects ranging from Phantoms to Starifghters, a Super Mystere and a Sabre, MiG-21s and even a Tomcat. In the end however I decided to build one of those aircrafts that I watched flying when I was a kid: a G.91R The best way to build this aircraft in 1/72 scale is of course the recent Meng kit The box I'm using is the first one issued that contained decals for a Frecce Tricolori aircraft, a Luftwaffe one with a very aggressive sharkmouth and an aircraft trialled by the US Army. The decals for these subjects look good but the sheet is quite light on stencils.. the G.91 was covered in stencils, fortunately most were black so are hard to see.. and with black stencils I can still print them on my laser ! Inside the box are 4 sprues in light grey and one in clear plastic. Surface detail is very good and all parts look very sharply moulded, always a sign of good quality. Hopefully fit will be of the same good quality (most reviews say so). Detail is not the best, the wheel wells and the cockpit are not bad but could have been better. More so as this is quite an expensive kit ! Mine was on offer and still costed €20, that for what is afterall a very small aircraft is not on the cheap side. To add some more detail I'm thinking of using the set made by Pavla for the Revell kit. I have no idea if this set will fit in the Meng kit, only time will tell. In any case I also have the Eduard zoom set, again designed for the Revell kit. Worst case I'll try to adapt the PE parts to the Meng original cockpit. Detail in the wheel wells will have to be scratchbuilt. As said above the only Italian subject in the box is a Frecce Tricolori aircraft. I like the Frecce aircrafts but this time I want to build one of the machines used by the Italian Air Force in the light attack role. In particular I will build an aircraft from the 2nd Aerobrigata (later renamed 2nd Stormo) chosen from the aircrafts taking part in this exercise: http://www.thunderstreaks.com/exercises/larissa-greece-best-hit-airsouth-fighter-weapons-meet-july-18-20-1972/#prettyPhoto The reason for choosing one of these aircrafts is that these pictures show aircrafts that still have the original flatter canopy, a type replaced by a more bulged hood a couple years later. The Meng kit only supplies the early hood so choosing an aircraft before 1974-75 is necessary if the modeller want an accurate reproduction. At the same time the early hood means the presence of an MB Mk.4 seat and not the Mk.6 included in both the kit and the Pavla set. Finding a new seat is of course easier than replacing a canopy... Of course choosing an aircraft in service in 1972 also means having a perfect subject for this GB ! As the kit does not include decals for these aircrafts, I'll have to put the markings together from a number of sources. Part of the stencils will come from the sheet (the US Army aircraft retains the dual language Italian-English rescue markings while the German one has the standard English stencils used for most other areas of the aircraft), some may come from an old Airfix sheet for their G.91. The Airfix sheet should also supply the unit insignia while numbers and roundels will come from a few Tauromodel sheet I have in the stash. These include numbers in pretty much all the different styles used by the G.91R over time. Meng has another box of this kit that includes markings for Italian Air Force operational aircrafts, so this search is not necessary if someone has that box. References shouldn't be a problem as the long service of this aircraft in the Italian Air Force means that there are plenty of articles in my collection of older Italian magazines. One in particular includes a very useful walkaround with many pictures of details. 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
modelling minion Posted April 8, 2017 Share Posted April 8, 2017 Great choice Giorgio. Always liked these. I'm (still) waiting for AMK to pull their finger out and release their 1/48 version. I shall be watching your build with interest. Craig. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirageiv Posted April 10, 2017 Share Posted April 10, 2017 Excellent choice Giorgio, I really look forward to this one, you hardly ever see a model this great little jet. I've been wanting to do a G.91 (though German) for ages, interested to see how you get on with the kit. cheers David 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 11, 2017 Author Share Posted April 11, 2017 On 8/4/2017 at 9:24 PM, modelling minion said: Great choice Giorgio. Always liked these. I'm (still) waiting for AMK to pull their finger out and release their 1/48 version. I shall be watching your build with interest. Craig. Thanks Craig ! I'm also waiting for the AMK kit, it's about time that someone issues a new 48 Gina. 14 hours ago, mirageiv said: Excellent choice Giorgio, I really look forward to this one, you hardly ever see a model this great little jet. I've been wanting to do a G.91 (though German) for ages, interested to see how you get on with the kit. cheers David Thanks David, German machines have some differences but the Meng kit caters for both options. Not had time to do anything yet but I've been able to better look at the plastic and decide what needs to be done on this kit. Some modifications will be because of my choice: - cockpit: the Meng parts are not too bad but the Pavla ones are better. Problem is that the Pavla part is designed for the Revell kit and a quick check showed that it will require work to fit. And I'm not sure it will be worth... we'll see - air intake: the Meng solution is very simple, just glue a bulkhead and paint it black. Sorry but Revell offered a much nicer intake duct ! The Pavla cockpit also includes part of the intake duct, if I use the resin cockpit I'll then also rebuild at least part of the duct. Actually I have to as I've sanded the inner front fuselage halves to rebuild a better intake.. - flaps: parked G.91s almost always have the flaps dropped, I'll have to cut the parts and rebuild the actuators and the upper fairing - starter cartridge panels: these are two circular panels located one on each side of the rear fuselage and allow access to insert a cartridge in the starter system (the G.91 Orpheus engine used such a system). They are often open on the ground as the panels also hide some engine related instruments that ground crew need to access regularly. I may open one or both of these Then there are a few things that I have to do because of the kit: - wheels: not great, I'll check if the Revell R or the Aeroclub T kits have better wheels and may clone these in resin - landing gear: oh dear! The Meng parts are very simplifiied, the Revell ones are way better. Meng also made a mistake with the front gear leg actuator by moulding this in line with the leg. It should be mounted laterally. - panel lines: I said they are good... well, they are but on the top fuselage they tend to disappear I'm now a bit lass impressed by this kit, not that it's bad but for the money I'd have expected something better. Fortunately Meng constantly improved and their following 1/72 aircraft kit (the F-102) was a much better one. This was then followed by the F-106 that is a really impressive kit 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giemme Posted April 11, 2017 Share Posted April 11, 2017 Ooooh, I'm in for this, G! Ciao Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyTiger66 Posted April 11, 2017 Share Posted April 11, 2017 I'm also in for this. I could be mistaken, but I think I saw some of these in the South of Italy (Puglia) when I was a very young boy; maybe 1970-72. I think they may have had shark mouths too; perhaps plain silver aircraft? I could be wrong. It would be Brindisi or down to Lecce, Gallipoli/Galatone area (I had relatives there then, in Galatone). I have seen this kit on offer here in Australia for a good price, but I wondered if it is better than the Revell one? I will watch and listen to what you find and think about it; it's a truly attractive little aircraft . Best regards TonyT 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 11, 2017 Author Share Posted April 11, 2017 2 hours ago, giemme said: Ooooh, I'm in for this, G! Ciao Hope you'll like this model ! 1 hour ago, TonyTiger66 said: I'm also in for this. I could be mistaken, but I think I saw some of these in the South of Italy (Puglia) when I was a very young boy; maybe 1970-72. I think they may have had shark mouths too; perhaps plain silver aircraft? I could be wrong. It would be Brindisi or down to Lecce, Gallipoli/Galatone area (I had relatives there then, in Galatone). I have seen this kit on offer here in Australia for a good price, but I wondered if it is better than the Revell one? I will watch and listen to what you find and think about it; it's a truly attractive little aircraft . Best regards TonyT Tony, it's very possible that you saw one of these in Southern Italy but if they had sharkmouths then they were the G.91Y of 32nd Stormo based in Brindisi. The Y was a more powerful variant powered by 2 J85 engines (same of the F-5) instead of the single Bristol/RR Orpheus. Not far from there was the Amendola base, close to Lecce, where the twin seater G.91T of the advanced training school were based for many years. Speaking of the kit, IMHO this is better than the Revell one in terms of shape. Some details of the Revell kit are however better than what Meng supplies, the best model would probably see the main parts of the Meng kit with some details from the Revell one. If the Meng kit is on offer, I'd sure buy one 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lex77 Posted April 11, 2017 Share Posted April 11, 2017 A Gina! Like your choice. It sure is time for a 1/48 G-91. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 16, 2017 Author Share Posted April 16, 2017 (edited) On 11/4/2017 at 10:59 PM, Lex77 said: A Gina! Like your choice. It sure is time for a 1/48 G-91. Glad you like the choice, I hope to be able to make a decent model out of this kit. Work has finally started and I'd have liked to say that I started from the cockpit as usual.. well, almost: I started from the intake. The bulkhead proposed by Meng may work for a quick build however I feel that on aircrafts with this kind of intake (G.91 but also A-7 or F-8) some depth is preferrable. So I sanded the various attachment points for the bulkhead and other internal features All easy, so I could start to focus on something I had decided from the start: dropping the flaps. I immediately hit a problem here as I struggled to understand what panel lines actually represented the flaps. The panel lines on the wing of the kit are quite good, however Meng made no effort in differentiating the moveable surfaces from the other panel lines. Fortunately the friends from an Italian modelling forum came to my help and I managed to understand everything... and discovered in the meantime that Meng didn't really do a great job as some panel lines are missing or wrong. Including the actual flap leading edge line on the wing lower surface... The fact that the wings are made in one piece each meant that cutting took a long, long time. In the end however I managed to separate the flap from the right wing As the G.91 used slotted flaps, I had to rebuild the fairing on the wing uppersurface and then shape the flap to a proper airfoil section The flaps is not complete yet as I have to add the holes for the actuators and drill some lightening holes on the sides. The wing isn't done either as I have to rebuildpart of the lower surface and add some more detail. Small detail: the pitot tube of the wing didn't survive the handling needed to separate the flap. No problem as I totally expected this. The solution is simply to remove the plastic parts and drill a hole, ready to accept a length of metal tubing of the proper size As I couldn't bear the idea of cutting another flap (better wait a day to recover first), I looked back at the intake and noticed one problem: the front wheel well is nicely detailed but it's too deep. Quite unusual problem as I've often seen kits with shallow wheel wells but never one with an excessively deep well. With such a deep well the floor would be so close to the cockpit bottom side that I could never have a proper intake. A look at pictures also showed that whatever detail is in the front wheel well is fictituous anyway so I decided to retain the sides and chop the top, with more plastic removed at the front to give the well the right profile. The floor of the well was replaced with plasticard and I curved this following the shape of the intake (as seen in pictures of the real parts). The structure of the well will later be scratchbuilt following the references. Edited April 16, 2017 by Giorgio N 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giemme Posted April 16, 2017 Share Posted April 16, 2017 Very interesting surgery going on here, G! Looking forward to more! Ciao 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hewy Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Like it giorgio,very tidy and intricate, going to be good this, Glynn 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirageiv Posted April 17, 2017 Share Posted April 17, 2017 Lovely work Giorgio, the improvements you are doing will really be worth it in the end. I agree with Glynn, this will be a great watch. David 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col. Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 Great start there Giorgio with some impressive surgery. This is already looking as if it will be a comprehensive model with plenty exta detail. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted April 25, 2017 Author Share Posted April 25, 2017 (edited) Thanks to all, don't know how much detail I'll be able to add but for sure all these modifications will make the build more difficult... While my latest update was a while ago, I've actually worked constantly on this kit. Ok, maybe not much per day, but I tried to do something almost every day. Both flaps have now been cut from the wings, a job of which I hated every second. Both wings have now received two plasticard strips, one to close the rear of the wheel well (and representing the rear spar) and one to cover part of the flap recess (slotted flaps have different chord on upper and lower surfaces, so needing a cover on the wing uppersurface to maintain the profile when the flaps are closed). The plasticard strips have been sanded flush and filler has been applied on the top. The wings will need some more work, but it was time to work on the cockpit. My original plan was to use the Pavla set but no matter what I tried, I couldn't find a way to make this fit in the Meng fuselage. So in the end yesterday I reverted to using the original kit cockpit. This required some added detail, in particular the bulkhead behind the seat that was added from thin plasticard. A plasticard rectangle was also glued on the bottom of the cockpit part to represent the top of the intake trunk. This rectangle was then sanded to give a slight curvature. The instrument panel was another problem... the kit panel is inaccurate and too small. I checked the Eduard PE part meant for the Revell kit and this was better but not completely accurate either. In the end I decided to make a resin clone of the Pavla part. I did not use the Pavla panel as this needed work to be made to fit and I preferred to work on the softer resin I use to cast my own part. Cutting the Pavla resin would have likely resulted in breaking the part. So here are the cockpit and the panel after some medium blue-grey paint was sprayed on (darker on the panel) The paint I used was mixed from a couple of Vallejo bottles to represent the colour used on Ginas and other Italian built aircrafts. The Pavla set is now back in its box, unfortunately it's been chopped in parts to attempt fitting this in the Meng kit. Hopefully I'll be able to reuse it for my planned Matchbox G.91Y. Another area that required a lot of experimentation is the air intake. I tried using filler and plasticard but none of these gave me good results. In the end I found that using simple paper allowed me to make a part that I could fold as I needed. To make the paper more robuts, I applied on one side a layer of aluminum self adhesive tape, courtesy of the local DIY shop. This is a great product for modelers and can find many uses in our hobby. But more on this in the next post... Edited April 25, 2017 by Giorgio N 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giemme Posted April 26, 2017 Share Posted April 26, 2017 More great surgery going on, G! Impressive job with the flap housings Cockpit looks very promising too, can't wait to see it completed. Ciao 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mountain goat Posted April 28, 2017 Share Posted April 28, 2017 Wow, nice progress! I really like the solution you have for the intake. The price of the kit is indeed close to insane, but then if one wants a Gina, there's not much choice. Jay 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted May 3, 2017 Author Share Posted May 3, 2017 Jay, the best way to try and keep the price down is probably buying directly from China... however once custom and other expenses are added there's not much saving. I was lucky enough to buy this at a discounted price but IMHO it was still expensive... particularly for the limited detail Some progress with no pictures (the camera battery went flat at the wrong time) I managed to complete painting the cockpit tub and the instrument panel. The panel in particular is not great as the Pavla part is not moulded very sharply as I'd expect from resin afermarket. Of course I had to trim the panel quite a lot as it was meant for a different kit, but the final result is acceptable. The solution for the intake on the other hand looks very promising, a couple of fit trials showed how this simple piece of paper can make quite a difference... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giemme Posted May 3, 2017 Share Posted May 3, 2017 3 minutes ago, Giorgio N said: The solution for the intake on the other hand looks very promising, a couple of fit trials showed how this simple piece of paper can make quite a difference... I'm looking forward to see some pics about this subject, G Ciao 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted May 4, 2017 Author Share Posted May 4, 2017 So after having recharged the batteries, here are the pictures ! Let's start with the cockpit, now painted. The colours are not really correct in the pics as I had to increase the brightness and contrast a lot to make the details more visible. Getting the Pavla panel in the right place wasn't easy ! Hopefully I did it. With the cockpit paint drying I glued the paper intake duct onto the nose gear well. This part had previously been detailed but I forgot to take pictures. The part as it is now is IMHO much better than what Meng supplied and also replicates the sloping roof of the well As said before, the duct is made from simple paper onto which I glued some self adhesive aluminum tape. This was then painted using a Tamiya spray can. The duct was first glued on the top of the nose wheel well and then around one half of the fuselage intake area. It was later trimmed flush with the front fuselage, where the part depicting the intake lip will be glued- The idea is that the rear of the duct will then be wrapped around the bottom of the cockpit part, onto which I glued a plasticard strip to reproduce the intake duct roof. Using paper means that the duct is so thin that there's no interference on the fuselage width at the intake mouth, so that I can have the paper walls higher than the line of the cockpit floor. The presence of the two large openings for the weapon panels on the fuselage halves clearly helps a lot with such a job as I'll able to push the duct in place after the fuselage is closed. Hopefully... 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giemme Posted May 4, 2017 Share Posted May 4, 2017 Very smart solution for the air duct, G! I shall shamelessly copy it for future projects Lovely detail on the IP an tub too, although I think a picture of it oriented slightly more in favour of light would help appreciating your job (think of your second picture with the tub rotated 30° counterclockwise, if you know what I mean) Ciao Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mountain goat Posted May 4, 2017 Share Posted May 4, 2017 Nice work on the intake! I can't wait to see how it looks when it all comes together. Jay 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hewy Posted May 7, 2017 Share Posted May 7, 2017 Very nice improvements giorgio Glynn 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted May 10, 2017 Author Share Posted May 10, 2017 On 4/5/2017 at 5:34 PM, giemme said: Very smart solution for the air duct, G! I shall shamelessly copy it for future projects Please do, I'm happy if other modellers find my ideas useful for their builds ! Does it also mean we may see a G.91 coming from you in the future ? Lovely detail on the IP an tub too, although I think a picture of it oriented slightly more in favour of light would help appreciating your job (think of your second picture with the tub rotated 30° counterclockwise, if you know what I mean) Ciao You're unfortunately right,... I tried to do better on the following pictures, but I'm not sure they really are much of an improvement. The light on my bench is not great, I may have to ask someone to point a torch into the cockpit On 4/5/2017 at 6:14 PM, Mountain goat said: Nice work on the intake! I can't wait to see how it looks when it all comes together. Jay Glad you like this, I'm quite happy with this solution, although taking pictures inside the intake is even more difficult than with the cockpit On 7/5/2017 at 8:56 AM, Hewy said: Very nice improvements giorgio Glynn Thanks Glynn, the kit is not bad but IMHO really needs something more to make it better. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giorgio N Posted May 10, 2017 Author Share Posted May 10, 2017 (edited) I know, I'm a slow builder. Worst of all, I get easily distracted. The result is that it always takes me time to build anything and this G.91 is no exception. Decisions like trying to use parts not designed for the right kit or adding what I feel may be improvements don't help and the problems I've had with the instrument panel are proof of this. I thought I had glued the panel in the right position, maybe I had, however the panel didn't survive the handling needed to glue the fuselage halves together. So it was back to finding the right position, applying glue, losing the panel, searching on the floor, trying to glue it again in the right place, noticing some interference with other bits... in any case I finally managed to glue the panel and then I immediately glued the fuselage halves together. And here's the panel in place, hoping it stays there ! Barely visible in the picture above is the control stick. This had to be shortened quite a lot as the original part was really too long (reaching the top of the tub). Meng sure looked at pictures of the real G.91 cockpit, but must have been little more than a quick glance... There's still a couple of parts missing from the panel, in particular the gunsight assembly. This will go in the slot right above the panel. TO replicate this, I made another resin copy of the Pavla part, from which I'll cut the gunsight only. This because it's easier to add this after the fuselage halves are glued together. The intake is also one of the areas I invested plenty of time... how does it look ? Not bad, not bad at all ! Even if the picture shows almost nothing ! Really the inside is only visible from very close, maybe it was a waste of time but I like the effect, way better than the bulkhead proposed by Meng. I've yet to glue the sides of the intake to the cockpit at the rear. To be honest I think that once the gun panels are in place there may not even be any need to glue the sides, I'll do some dryfitting to check this. If I can avoid gluing the parts, it's even better. Clearly this kind of work is possible on this kit because of the presence of the two huge gaps where the gun panels go, on something like say an A-7 things would not be as easy. Speaking of fuselage, here are a couple of views of the assembly: Fit was decent on the bottom, not great on the top. May be because of my modifications, may be because I'm not the best modeller, most reviews seem to mention a vey good fit. Oh well, nothing that can't be sorted with some sanding. These two views also show the detail in the wheel and airbrake wells. I've started adding some detail in the airbrake well, more will be added now that the wells are glued to the fuselage. Another thing that can be seen in these pictures is the shape of the G.91 fuselage... no area rule on this one ! Edited May 10, 2017 by Giorgio N 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giemme Posted May 10, 2017 Share Posted May 10, 2017 Great to see this coming together, G! She's already looking like a Gina! 57 minutes ago, Giorgio N said: Please do, I'm happy if other modellers find my ideas useful for their builds ! Does it also mean we may see a G.91 coming from you in the future ? I was actually thinking of a Hasegawa 1/48 F-16 I have in my stash for your seamless intake solution, but I'd love to build a Yankee (G91-Y, for those not in the know); I recently read a book written by a former Italian G91Y pilot and I really enjoyed it (can't remember title and author right now but I'll get them for you, if you haven't read it already I think you'll greatly enjoy it too). I'm afraid I'll have to wait for the right kit, though Ciao Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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