O.K. There is something very very special about a 1940 Battle of Britain aircraft for us British. It doesn\\\'t really matter which side the aircraft flew for, all we kids know is that during the Summer of 1940 the fields beaches and Coastline of South East England became littered with the detrius of a huge prolonged air battle, involving many thousands of aircrew and hundreds of machines from both sides. Importantly, we almost definitely owe our freedom and current way of life to the outcome of that battle, and the young men who so valiantly defended our airspace. Also, it is possibly quite unusual that because of the nature of the battle, we can look almost fondly (in a most British way,) upon the vanquished Luftwaffe, who once declared \\\"out of the game,\\\" would quite probably have been taken off to awaiting hot bath, change of clothes, huge mug of tea, and a friendly debrief before passing go, and ending up in a P.o.w. camp somewhere in Scotland or Canada, conveniently having been given a good excuse to miss out on the unbelievable horrors of the Invasion of Russia and a daily thrashing with the thundering might of the 8th Air Force much later in the war.
Because of the inability of the early (er) E model to load extra fuel, once hit by even one single well placed .303round, the pilot would have to make a quick decision whether to possibly drown in the English Channel trying to make it back to France, or wait for his mates to turn up, and slog it out for a few weeks in the forthcoming Invasion of the British mainland. Also becasue of the convenience of being able to land on nice fluffy corn fields and the like, the RAF had every chance to take photo\\\'s of anything and everything that came down, and sometimes give us whole reams of stuff, the like of which the modeller of aircraft operating in other theatres can but dream of. And then there are also the private photo albums, the archives of the local newspapers, the lack of language barrier and first hand reports. In short, even after 70 years, we can sometimes almost feel we are there..
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Take for example, the machine force landed by Leo Zaunbrecher of JG52 on the Afternoon of 12th August. I have long loved the appeal of this machine, and have decided that this will be my submission for the group build. It\\\'s an E-1, so no magazine bulges in the wings, and a nice \\\"changeover \\\" scheme with a repaint of RLM 02 and RLM 65, yet still showing it\\\'s earlier paint job if you look closely. There is a great appeal to me of \\\"high side\\\" \\\'65 paint scheme 109s, maybe because of the film \\\"Battle of Britain\\\" released when I was young and extremely impressionable, and that\\\'s the way I want to do mine, even though by the middle of the Battle, this scheme had been largely modified. It is an interesting point to wonder why Luftwaffe airfields were never strafed during dusk or early dawn hours, and i always feel that Defiants, Hampdens, Blenheims et al could have causes a fair bit of havoc among the Luftwaffe if thsi had been done, and of course for many it would have been a one way trip, but even so...
Well the kit had to be Airfix, I have had this one burning a hole in my stash ever since it was released, and I got the thing at a discount too! As far as 1/48 109's go, I have never been particularly impressed with either the Tamiya or Hasegawa offferings, although the Canopy of the Hasegawa kit is very very nice. More of that later.. I have a strong feeling that Zvezda will release an "E" in the near future- I can see no other reason they would include an early 109 "curved" canopy on the clear sprue for the F-2- lets all pray together for a moment
The Airfix 109E is not without it's faults, and there are quite a few, but it also has some good points, namely, overall shape (if not perfect) and the set of the wings (always a problem with the Tamiya kit.) For a schoolboy purchase it is exactly what the hobby needs, and the quite perfect fit of the major components means that the eager could easily get one of these together and make a bloody good first attempt.
I decided I wanted a more accurate cockpit (the Airfix 'pit is actually quite reasonable) and already had an Aires set in the stash, and after a few moments fiddling, decided I could get it in. Obviously I had to remove the sidewall detail, and thin things right down, but in the end in it goes, now fixed in with Superglue, sprayed and detail painted to the best of my abilities and eyesight, and now the fuselage halves are ready to be joined, although the main cockpit floor will have to stay out for now, as the instrument panel is going to have to be slid into place from underneath- pictures to follow. I took the opportunity to thin down the rear fuselage of the Airfix kit, as I feel it is a tad too chunky. I did this by using the Tamiya bastard file after removing the locating pins. I also "corrected" the airofoil section of the vertical fin, as it is way too "full."
So- this is as far as I have got so far- (although the wings are well on the way- more to follow.
Thanks for looking.
