Revell 1/72 Arado Ar196A-3

[John]

It seems like a shame to have this Group Build without an Ar196 in it, so I'll stick this placeholder here and hopefully get to work soon. It will also be a good tryout for the new Humbrol RLM 72 and 73.

 

 

The kit is of course the Heller moulding which first saw the light of day the year I left High School - 1979. I remember having the Heller "black box" release but I think I sold it, I certainly don't remember building it. It has been boxed by Encore and Lodella as well as Heller and Revell.

 

The kit is securely bagged in the box and has 4 rather brittle feeling light grey sprues and one transparent, so quite a lot for a small aircraft:

 

 

 

 

 

Markings for 2 examples, one from Norway and one based in France. Decals look good:

 

 

Instructions are typical Revell newsprint:

 

 

Build will be OOB with any additional reference coming from the instructions for the Revell 1/32 kit, which are available on their website.

 

More shortly.

 

John

 

[jrlx]

Hi John,

 

Welcome to the GB! The Ar 196 is a great choice and I look forward to seeing it built, as I plan to build one some time in the future (maybe not the Revell one, I'd prefer a more recent tooling).

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

[Nigel Heath]

Sign me up for this one. The clear parts look a bit hazy, may be a polish / coat of Klear would help.

[bbudde]

Heello I'm in here for this. If you can grab an old eduard set for this one, get it. It makes such a great  difference in terms of details. Cheers

[John]

I've spent a bit of time this evening looking over the parts of this kit. It's a product of it's time, with basic cockpit detail but not much else inside:

 

 

The pilot's seat, control yoke and rudder pedals locate on a simple floor that only extends to the rear of the pilot's position and seems to equate to a raised section of cockpit floor in the real thing. The big Revell kit instructions show a floor at a lower level extending all the way to the rear cockpit bulkhead. I wasn't going to add anything to the kit's interior but...!

 

The only feature within the fuselage halves is this strange curved thingy that appears on both sides. I thought it was an artefact caused by the flow of the plastic into the mould at first but the big instructions suggest it represents a structural member of some sort, so I won't sand it off:

 

 

Surface detail is nicely restrained raised lines and subtle fabric effects on the control surfaces:

 

 

The plastic is translucent, and I thought at first that the kit was a bit flashy but I think it's mostly an effect of the plastic letting through more light than we might be used to. It reminds me in many ways of Revell plastic from years ago - I remember the ex-FROG He115 being moulded in something similar when it was first released.

 

More shortly.

 

John

 

 

 

[zebra]

Good choice John. I think I built one of these a long, long time ago, I seem to remember I quite liked it at the time.

[jrlx]

Good to have this one started, John! Looking forward to the next instalment.

 

Cheers

 

Jaime

 

 

[JOCKNEY]

Hi John

Have you made any more progress with your Arado ?

My daughter Rose is building the original Black Box Heller version of this kit, in this GB. So any advice, tips etc greatly appreciated by her and her dad !

cheers Pat