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Hi, One of interesting military airplane which started as civil (passenger) was Heinkel He 70/170. As with all compromises - it was not really good in any role He 70 tok part in Spanish Civil War - as driven by V-engine, without spectacular sucesses. He 170 is an export version of He 70, equipped wuth radial engine, the French G-R 14 cyliders one. Hungary exploited a batch of He 170 in role of recce airplanes. May be noted, that Hungary start WWII before WWII (!) - with few days war with Slovakia in spring 1939. Then Hungary was forced by Germans to take part in April 1941 campaign against Yugoslavia (Hungarian prime minister even commited suicide it protest! ) and then they went to war against Soviet Union in June 1941. My Heinkel He 170A (Matchbox/Revell kit) is practicly OOB, presenting markings of 1st Independent Group for Long Range Recconaissance, based in Kecskemet 1939-40, perhaps she took part in short war with Slovakia in 1939. Best regards Jerzy-Wojtek EDIT P.S. (15.01.2022) Currently I am doing He 70 from the same Matchbox/Revell kit and looking at currently available to me photos I noticed that in above build of He 170 in Hungarian colors (done in December 1993) I wrongly followed some color profile regarding blinded small windows on fuselage sides. On left side there should eb two windows and on right side two square windows and circular one. Sorry for mistake... Regards J-W

For part two of my reparations to Col I shall be taking my build to the other temperature extreme from the deserts of North Africa, the freezing cold of the Russian front in Winter. I have an interest in the equipment flown by Germany's allies and have wanted to build up a collection of 109's in their various markings so this seemed as good a place to start as any. I was going to go with a Romanian E but the Airfix decals I have for them are a bit pants with the yellow looking very faded which will only get worse when put onto a dark green camouflage scheme, I then thought about a Finnish G-2 but thought I would save that for the Scandinavian GB later this year, Bulgaria is being expertly covered by @Ray_W in great detail, I already have an Italian ANR G-10 so that left Hungary and Slovakia, and Hungary was the best option in my opinion. The Hungarians operated almost every version of the 109 so there is a lot to choose from, including a great variety of colour schemes. The version of 109 I am going with is the F-4 which in my opinion is the best looking 109 version, and the kit I am going with is the recent offering from Zvezda which is a very comprehensive kit of around 200 parts, not all of which are used as there are parts in the kit to allow you to build an F-2 as well and there are options of open or closed panels on the wing undersides and complete engine should you decide to display your model that way. Here is the ubiquitous box top shot, with some pretty nice art work; And the untouched sprues; And a look at some of the details on the wing interiors; And the aftermarket decals by SBS that I will be using for this build; And the sheet itself; Don't think I will be using the decals for the tail stripes, paint will work much better. And a look at what for me was the absolute stand out scheme on the sheet; I do love a winter camouflage scheme! Also gives plenty of scope for weathering, the plan is to paint the aircraft in it's normal 74/75/76 scheme and then apply the decals and then to carefully mask them and spray the white over the top, just like they did in the field. I need to get Emil either finished or very close before I can make a start on Friedrich, hopefully that will be soon. Thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received. Craig.

After I got back to building kits, I got lured by this striking boxart and bought the most horrible plastic kit I have seen in the last... er, actually ever. This. The kit is a definite dawg. Horrible. I´m not one of those guys who can fix things like this and make the more recent Ju 88 kits pale when compared to it, when it´s done. To be honest I don´t even have the kit anymore in my stash as a "kit"; I do have all the parts left but they are thrown in my spares box, and I thought they were there for good... before they´d be thrown in the bin! So, all you Airfix Golden Years People, look what you´ve done. It´s alive and kicking again! Fortunately I do have some spares from more modern Ju 88 kits to either replace the worst parts of this kit (all the "clear" parts that is) or avoid using them at all (dive brakes and racks) by converting it to a MTO C-4 night fighter from Sicily. For that purpose I have this decal scheme from AIMS decal sheet Ju 88 Experten: Well the rules say the fuselage and wings should be original, and in my plan they mostly would do that. But I won´t even try to make the famous silk purse out of this; if I finish this at all, I´ll be happy. We´ll see... V-P

Hi, Back to my Germans shelf. I would like to share with photos of Heinkel He 46 E. This is a scratch conversion from He 46 C version, by AML, 1/72. The main difference is in engine - He 46 E has 14 cylider Gnome-Rhone engine, 3 blade propeller and NACA cowling whereas in "C" version it was 9 cylinder single row radial without any cowling and with 2 blades propeller. There was a variety of painting scheme and patterns of Hungarians He 46, which was in use during whole WWII in Hungary as main tactical recconesance airplane. Mine presents machine from 1st Recce Sq. of Hungarian Air Forces during war against Yugoslavia (6th -18th April 1941). Those days they painted cowlings and tails in yellow. Later in 1941, soon after German attack on Soviet Union (22 June 1941) they changed the national insignia into black square with white cross. Perhaps it would be interesting to recall, in context of Hungarian share in attack on Yugoslavia , that Hungarian prime minister Pal Teleki committed suicide on 3rd April 1941 in protest against forcing his country by Germans to joint this war ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pál_Teleki)... Regarding my model - I am not sure about the colours I used. You may find different shades and different patterns on various profiles. Photos. I've seen. all were BW/ I made her in rather lighter shades. The code (F.306) I made as red overspayed green - I've seen a photo or profile like that. In net there is a photo of F.316, where code number colour looks like red if you compare to red part of tri colour triangle of national insignia. However, majority of photos of Hungarian He 46 E showed very dark (black) letterings (the most of photos and profiles depicts F.303) but for earlier period, without yellow elements and with less regular camo. I supposed, that airplanes were repainted (how many times?) during exploitation. Squadron emblems are free-hand paint on decal. Comments welcome Regards Jerzy-Wojtek

Hi, Arado A 96 B - German WWII trainer airplane - here in Hungarian markings from about 1944. Model mad out of Kovozavody kit (rised lines etc... .). ... Note partially overpainted white on national insignias on fuselage nad on white strips on tail. Comments welcome Regards Jerzy-Wojtek