[The British Heinkel]

Hi Skodadriver

As written in the blog (that's why I thought it was useful to add the link -unaware of the rule- besides the step-by-step construction article):

 

"Different accounts exist on the details and development of the acquisition by England in 1936 of a He-70 passenger plane, before all hell broke loose a few years later.

You can find the stories with the browser of your preference. The fact is that England acquired a He-70 but had to send a Rolls-Royce Kestrel to be installed on it in origin as the builders -predictably- refused to send their plane as it was to England (with its BMW engine) to be motorized there (they all felt the dark clouds already looming).

This was no doubt a sort of intrigue gimmick, but the plane finally arrived to Croydon with a Kestrel -in route to Hucknall- with its British registrations."

 

Of course there is more to it, the plane was used as a trial platform for other engines, and some diplomacy/MI5 undertones. As far as I recall it was short-lived, and was scraped either in 44 or 45.

Sorry for the somewhat fragmented and not extensive info, I read snippets here and there on the Net as I was doing the research.

You may find more in the German magazine Flugzeug Classic issue 6/2000, and in the Flight archives, April 2 1936 pages 355 and 363

 

Kind regards

 

[The British Heinkel]

Thanks to all for the kindness and patience, and especially for the simple and short tutorial to the photo upload.

Will edit the post accordingly.

Oi, new site, many things to learn.

Kind regards

 

[The British Heinkel]

Here a couple images of the British Heinkel, converted from the ICM kit changing the nose and altering other parts, plus some additions.

A previous post on the same matter was excised since it contained a link, which seems that is not appropriate in certain cases.

Hope this unusual version of the "good" Heinkel entices some modelers to attempt this kind of conversion.

 

Three things differentiated the "British" Heinkel He-70 from the original one:

1) A different nose with a different engine

2) The covers of the retractable landing gear are partially different

3) It didn't belong to the freaking dumbhead nazis

Different accounts exist on the details and development of the acquisition by England in 1936 of a He-70 passenger plane, before all hell broke loose a few years later.

You can find the stories with the browser of your preference. The fact is that England acquired a He-70 but had to send a Rolls-Royce Kestrel to be installed on it in origin as the builders -predictably- refused to send their plane as it was to England (with its BMW engine) to be motorized there (they all felt the dark clouds already looming).

This was no doubt a sort of intrigue gimmick, but the plane finally arrived to Croydon with a Kestrel -in route to Hucknall- with its British registrations.

Long ago I used the old Matchbox/Revell kit to build the civil passenger version, but the sight of an ICM kit enticed me to build this unique machine, G-ADZF.

Nice of ICM to release once in a while a civil plane.

The kit, well-known by now, is a newer -and therefore better- kit than the venerable Matchbox/Revell rendition, but, as always, there is a little room for improvement. The lowest part of the wheels' retractable covers should be appended to the outer side of the wheel bay, instead of folding at 90 degrees of the leg cover as in the other machines.

The new nose was obtained via a carved basswood master used to plunge vac shells on the Mattel Psychedelic machine. I got a resin Engines & Things Kestrel.

The very good news:

The ICM kit comes in very sturdy box with the addition of a lid cover. I do appreciate this kind of box since as we all know it protects the contents much better than the pre-crushed flimsy thin packaging used by some manufacturers.

The molds as said are much better than the Matchbox/Revell old release, and include wonderful surface treatment as well as many detail parts.

The engineering is innovative.

The parts come separately bagged and the transparencies are clear and clean. The injected plastic is free of fuzz and flash and the sprue gates are reasonable small.

Now the not-so-good news:

The decals (that have small lettering rendered blotchy), for some reason I can't fathom, are absolutely dead matt in finish, whilst the real planes had a subtle shine clearly appreciated in photos. Not only that, but instead of printing the "thunderbolts" in their appropriate color, they are rendered as clear spaces amidst the black decals, that you somehow will have to match or mask in order to paint the surrounding nose black too.

In my boxing the instructions unfortunately committed the silliness of using a faint and fuzzy gray scale for the drawings, that fuses the detail in an undifferentiated gray mass, and makes everything confusing, rendering most of the diagrams useless. Really, guys, don't you check your galley proofs?

Summarizing:

A welcome civil release, fairly priced, and exceptional kit, of innovative engineering, well packaged, with superb detail and moldings, BUT where all graphic components (instructions and decals) are barely useful. 

 

The model: