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Yes I know JV44 Protection Flight (Platzschutszstaffel) has been done to death BUT not by me!!! I commenced this project in late 2022 but due to illness and a spell in hospital-yeuk! I had a break from kit-bashing and shelved this project. Then late last year I re-discovered the project, blew the dust off it and decided to complete it. Enough of the project history and on with the details:- Items used:- 1 x Eduard JV44 combo 1/48 Fw190D-9 + Fw190D-11 1 x Eduard 1/48 Fw190D-9 'Profipack' 1 x Eduard 1/48 Fw190D-9 'Weekend' 1 x Eduard 1/48 Fw190D-11 5 x AML 1/48 resin replacement tails 5 x Quickboost Fw190 Gun Covers 5 x Kits World 3D Instrument Decals - not recommended they did not fit well even though stated for the Eduard kit. 1 x EagleCal JV44 Decal sheet Eagle Files 1 ' Doras of the Galland Circus' plus as much reference material I could gather. The Eduard kit is not the easiest of kits to build but is probably the most accurate, except for the inaccurate too thick tail. Eduard should have taken the opportunity for a new tool D when they did the A - but still!! The build was a bit of a trial, I added what detail I could and eventually got to the painting stage. I used the EagleFiles book as the main reference for colour schemes and markings. AK Real Colours were used for painting. A couple of notes on the final result, I chose to show the undersurface white stripes a little ragged as they were probably hand painted. The stripes under the rear fuselage I chose to omit due to the fact they can't be seen on any photos, even though the photos aren't too clear. Also it would have been a bit of a pain for the ground crew to paint them???? Even though Red 4 & 13 were shown to be finished RLM 75/81, I found a reference by Jerry Crandell ( I think on Hyperscale) that all these machines were in fact RLM81 variations/ 82 which is how I decided to finish them. I also decided to build all five of the protection flight after finding a photo of Red 2 an Fw190D-11 on the internet. Not some of the best kits I've completed, some of this build was done whilst I was unwell so you will probably see some errors in my work!! It's certainly not a project I would repeat, I'll stick to two builds a time in future, Thanks for looking Andy

Here's my placeholder for Hasegawa's 1/32 FW190D-9... here's the kit: ... and the plasticky goodness therein: ... and the instructions: The kit contains a pilot figure who I may or may not use depending on how well done he is - I can't really see the parts for him in amongst the bagged sprues. If not, I have these: I also have the New Ware canopy mask set - inside and outside masks : The kit transfers look remarkably good for Hasegawa - I don't fancy the JV44 markings with the striped undersides (no offence @Retired Bob ) and the kit has two options for them, but there is another option provided: ... which I may use as it's a nice plain-looking one, but failing that I also have these: So I think I'm set. I've seen some different aftermarket gun-covers are available but I'm blissfully ignorant of the differences so I'll just hope the kit-supplied one is correct for whichever option I do go for See you when it all kicks off Cheers, Stew

Hi All; Here's the latest off the bench. I enjoyed this one very much indeed, and am quite pleased with how it turned out. As all of them are of course, this one has a couple of flaws too, but nothing I couldn't live with. Critique welcome, I tried a different approach with the paints which one of the pics amply illustrates... Craft paint and Windex, who'd have thought... Except the red underside, the model was airbrushed with these (Pine Green was a nice match for RLM82 but the RLM83 required a mix). Cheers; Mark.

Greetings Brits- Now that my modelling skills are improving... I decided to tackle the Eduard Fw-190D-9 in 1/48... This model has alot of detail and some reviews suggesting a tough build. Well, I did have some snags but everything went together fine for me, and even though this is designed as a kit with open gun hatch and wing root cannon hatches open, I followed the instructions and closed them up. It was tougher to do, but the next one I build will have these hatches open just to add variety in my display case. I built from the kit and the only thing I changed or added was the Eagle Strike #48003 decals for Black 1, 5/JG26 (II Gruppe), Wk No 210972 and a scratch built exhaust deflector on the starboard side. I did not put in all the fiddly PE instrument panels in, I used the nicely molded kit instrument panels... The only issue I really had was the drop tank in the kit did not attach to the ETC rack! The instructions say glue it on but the shape of the tank and the ETC rack had no attaching feature or interface of any kind! So I had to leave it off... I wanted to do a Standard Fw190D-9 Scheme from the FW Cottbus Plant, and the Wrk No 210xxx is for November 1944 to December 1944 production with the RLM 75 Grey Violet and RLM 83 Dark Green all over RLM76 (back when they still did paint the FW's in all underside in RLM76!) This ship had the later blown canopy possibly added in the field..., The photo I have of the original plane looks very well maintained and just has exhaust stains. It did have the later 'cigar' drop tank, which I cant find in 1/48 and will have scratch build in the future. The ETC rack is in the dark grey so I painted it like that... I assumed RLM66 for it... Enjoy the pictures! Its freshly finished on the workbench! Thanks for looking!

The second finish of 2019: Hasegawa's near thirty year old 190 D? : Kit was bought at the Telford 2018 kitswap for £7 with frazzled decals and old style Eduard masks. Skys decals were used along with Mr Paint/Mr Color paints - main markings were masked and sprayed to avoid silvering issues. Some artistic license was used for the camo as the colours were a bit garish at first, but its done and in the cabinet, not my best but good practice nonetheless. The Hasegawa kit is an absolute honey, beautiful fit, thoughtfully engineered and lovely subtle detailing , if you have one in the stash, do yourself a favour and build it! I've bought two new kits so pleased that two were removed from the stash by the end of January-my resolution not buy anything till I finish an equivalent. WIP at: With the Airfix 1/72 FW190 from last year:

I started this last week but was too lazy to post as due to the Christmas excesses: Its a Telford kit swap purchase which I picked up mainly for the old style Eduard masks it came with. I also realised I have never built a Hasegawa kit and as these 190Ds are highly thought of, why not? It was all there but the decals have seen much better days and are unusable as the carrier film has cracked along with the inks. Thank you fellow IPMS member for not mentioning that on the box... It doesn't bother me as i have alternative markings (replete with stencils) on this Skys sheet and being printed by Cartograf, the decaling should be a joy as per my FW190A. For this, I'll be doing "White 1, on the bottom right as it has a snazzy red spinner. I like red spinners. First job, HG are not fans of the gear up option so the redundant wheels from my Airfix 190A were duly sanded to fit the shallow wells. The gear doors fit beautifully and are exquisitely thin: Now off to sort out that cockpit as I've stalled on my Spitfire racer due to some unforeseen damage. Toodle pip chaps, Anil

Hello Everybody ... My latest build Tamiya’s 1/72 Fw-190D. I was kind of inspired to build this because of @Shelliecool‘s Recent 190 Dora. I used the kit decals but opted to go with a change in colors. I like the look of the late war two tone green uppers of RLM 82/83 over the RLM 76. Not entirely accurate but i can live with it. Ive got several builds in the works currently, but some are stuck for paint. So sooner or later i will have more to show for you. Without further talk i give you “Dora.” Please feel free to question, comment, or joke, I hope you like it. Dennis

I checked in as a ‘new member’ some time ago and wondered if I would ever move from ‘collecting’ to ‘modelling’ again. The opportunity was thrust upon me when I got that 7-day flu bug thing last month and felt so unwell that I even stayed off work for a day! This brought back the memory of what I would do if ill as a kid at Primary School and one occasion came back to me when I was confined to bed but handed an Airfix FW190D (red stripe, bagged) by a sympathetic parent. As others have said, the form in those days was build in a day, paint and decals on by the next day, although in my early days, I didn’t even stop to paint. So in doing this build to re-create the therapeutic effect, I felt I wanted to build OOB, undercarriage up in flight mode (always my favourite), build using cement not liquid glue, take the fit as it comes with no filling, then paint with Humbrol enamels using brushes. I had a lap tray on which to contain the build and materials and this proved handy in the later stages when putting away between sessions. So, away I went – what did I have in the stash but a red stripe bagged FW190D (wow, the ‘box art’ takes me back!) but also a ‘blister’ version with the same picture. The bagged kit is from the right era but my ‘collector’ gene kicked in and I decided to ‘keep’ that and build the kit in the blister pack. However, this means I will miss out on the ‘locate and cement…’ style instructions as the blister pack version is visual only. Only 24 pieces in this kit and the long nose shape looks great – being young back then, this was the ‘real’ shape for an FW190 and I can remember being a bit puzzled when I saw later kits of the FW190A with the big and short nose with radial engine, which just wasn’t right to my eyes! First off, propeller mounted to the engine front and glued to the spindle without seizing up – I left the fit a bit loose rather than pressing hard together - fantastic, when I blow, the propeller spins freely so I’m looking forward to possibly taking a final action photo with the airstream provided by a hairdryer. I’m over the moon because I only ever thought you were able to do this on kits with radial engines due to the longer spindle lengths through the engine blocks – in this case, the spindle goes through a separate cowling rather than just the fuselage front. Fuselage together and pilot glued to his ‘pins’ – no seat in this kit. Wing sections glued together OK but now realising that this kit has flash which needs trimmed off with a craft knife and the fit of the wings and stabilisers to the fuselage isn’t good. The fuselage has a distinct seam which I sanded with an emery board (for fingernails) and the front will need trimming before the engine cowling can go on – in fact, while trying to press it all together for a dry fit, I broke a propeller blade! Just for comparison, I opened up the bagged version of the kit, which I believe was made perhaps some 10 years earlier and tried a dry fit of the main components – very very much better without any trimming required! Was a quality control problem creeping in with Airfix kits? So, engine cowling on, glued the propeller blade back on, then stabilisers and this is where the cement comes into its own – as it dries, I can ‘babysit’ the final ‘square’ position of both sides by constantly checking/adjusting as they harden up. Wings on and there seems to be a tremendous dihedral! (I’ve seen someone else make that comment as well). The kit instructions say 7 degrees but I can’t get that technical – the wings need to sit as they fit with as little gap as possible top and bottom. (Some time later, I measured the height of the wingtips above, reminded myself of basic geometry and calculated the dihedral as approx. 13 degrees! Oh well…) As I said earlier, my younger self always built the kits with undercarriage up and here I had to return to the written instructions for the bagged kit to find that the locating pins had to be cut off the undercarriage legs to allow them to fit in the wheel wells – also the wheel spindles but I had to work that out for myself. The legs were not such a good fit when glued in place but that may have been due to my eyesight during trimming – must do better. Also, I later realised when looking at the re-tooled FW190D-9 kit from 1978 that you should actually be able to see part of the main undercarriage wheels when stowed – not so on this early kit but again, younger self not aware of this sort of detail. Air intake, tailwheel, cannons and aerial (what an awkward position!) on and clear stand assembled – broke that also as this later version has two pins to mate the upright to the base and was a bad fit, rather than the solid tab on the version in the bagged kit which could no doubt stand a bit more robust assembly – not an improvement for the better! I’ll leave the canopy off until the pilot is painted. I just noticed the bulges in the upper wing surfaces were not aligned with the 20mm cannons in the inboard positions – a bit of investigation revealed that the FW190D-13 may have had these bulges for the extra 30mm cannons in the outer wings and the kit header is more specific in confirming the kit is indeed representative of this model (although the blister and bagged kits disagree in listing armament and neither list the additional outer wing cannons). This means then that I will have to remember to paint in the additional 20mm cannon firing through the engine and spinner. Ready to paint…

I've just finished this - my sixth completion of 2017 - it's the Tamiya FW190D-9: I built it almost OOB with the following exceptions - I used the Eduard Microfabric seat harness set and canopy mask set, and transfers for the markings of an aircraft of 1/JG301 flown by Feldwebel Hagen Forster in the spring of 1945 from the Aeromaster Decals set 72-204 "Too Little, Too Late". I made the antenna wire from 70 Denier white Infini lycra rigging thread and replaced the cannon barrels and pitot tube with Albion Alloys Aluminium micro-tube. The paints were Sovereign Hobbies Colourcoats RLM74 Grauviolett (ACLW14) RLM76 Lichtblau (ACLW15) and RLM83 Dunkelgrun (ACLW01) and the interior RLM66 (ACLW16). I used various acrylics for little details and Tamiya Clear Red and Green for the wingtip navigation lights which I replaced with some stretched clear sprue. The Aeromaster instructions suggest that this aircraft was quite worn and dirty-looking, I've tried to imply that without going over the top, but the pictures suggest I should have gone a little further in a way that the naked eye does not entirely agree with. My mottling and freehand camouflage demarkation is a bit rubbish anyway but I don't want to draw attention away from it by doing something worse The kit goes together very nicely as you would expect given Tamiya's reputation for such things - the main landing gear bay suffers some innacuracy, having a 'roof' in the centre section which was apparently open in real life, exposing various bits of trunking and the back of the engine. This would of course be a lot of work to undertake unless it really bothered you or you intended to display it upside down. My grateful thanks to @DuncanB of BlackMike Models for selling it to me for a very reasonable price in the first place and for the subsequent advice on the colour scheme. Cheers, Stew

Hi folk's another late war Luftwaffe subject is Hobbyboss 190D,delight to build apart from those annoying sprue gates,after the 109F I wanted to get a bit more adventurous with the mottling using an old pen taped to the end of my basic airbrush I might just have got away with it,I have to thank Matt(mattlow) for sending fuselage crosses after the kit ones curled up and died! the swastika markings also curled up so replaced with all I had not accurate but better than none,I,m just about to start a pair of their 262's so hoping for better decal's,many thank's for looking in.

Hello All, I managed to get some half-decent pictures of my speed-build 1/72 Airfix Fw190D today. I made a few tiny improvements but it was mainly OOB with the kit's own decals. The decals performed flawlessly, much to my surprise! The fuselage slogan decal as supplied looks a bit like some wobbly white lines and blobs, so I added a few touches of paint to make it look like lettering. Still illegible, but it looks a lot better. All brush painted with Humbrol Acrylics, using the new RLM colours as appropriate. W-a-y not perfect (and where did that pitot tube go??) but great fun to do. Thanks for looking! Adrian

AZ Model is to release two 1/72nd Focke-Wulf Fw.190D kits - ref. AZ7482 & AZ7483 Ref. AZ7482 - Focke-Wulf Fw.190D-11 Source: http://www.azmodel.cz/product_info.php?products_id=745 Ref. AZ7483 - Focke-Wulf Fw.190D-13 Source: http://www.azmodel.cz/product_info.php?products_id=746 V.P.

First up the bombed out Ago factory showing Fw190s finished in late war colours, 5.18 into the film. http://resources.ushmm.org/film/display/detail.php?file_num=0364 Choose your colours! Second film showing the surrender of 2 JG6 Doras at Furth including the famous Blue 12, 1.10 into the film, surrender of a Ju87D 4.30 into the film also shown are P and C47s plus various armour. http://resources.ushmm.org/film/display/detail.php?file_num=5451. Again you'll find stills from these films in quite a few books. Tim.