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FINISHED AGAINST THE ODDS!!! Greek Henschel Hs126


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The Henschel Hs126 was one of the many similar designs that pitched up around the end of the 1930's, all intended to perform a similar mission, what was called "army co-operation", a catch-all term for artillery spotting, close reconaissance, light attack and communications duties. The Hs126 enjoyed the same strengths and weaknesses as its peers, such as the Westland Lysander, RWD-14 and ANF-110: good visibility, good manoueverability combined with low speed and weak defensive armament.

The Henschel design enjoyed some limited export sales, serving in the Air Forces of Spain and Estonia, as well as the Luftwaffe and as in this case, the Royal Hellenic Air Force.

The kit is Italeri's1/72 scale offering, here ready for the off!

29401848501_586ca12e20_k_d.jpg

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Great choice Mitch,.....one that I want to do at some point too,....... good luck with this one mate, I`ll be following you closely on this, the original boxing included Greek markings.

Cheers

Tony

Edited by tonyot
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One fairly obvious difference between the Greek Hs126 and those operated by other nations was that the Greek machines had two nose-mounted machine guns, instead of the one fitted to others. The fitting in the kit is at best rudimentary, but it's a start and something I can improve on. Luckily, there are some super drawings of the nose guns linked on this site.

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I have built the Revell boxing of this kit, as I remember it it was pretty decent. The Greek markings of the original boxing had incorrect codes on the fuselage.

Luckily I've got some photos of actual aircraft I can work from - printing the codes which were in the form "Capital sigma+number" shouldn't be a problem.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've started adding some internal structure to the cockpit - pictures of the real thing show this too be covered in assorted mismatched oddments and gubbins, so that won't be a problem!

 

29214407523_d919aace40_o_d.jpg

 

I've sanded off the raised panel detail and started rescribing - wings done, tailplanes next, then the fuselage - gulp! The horrible details on the ailerons are earmarked for removal soon!

 

29214392603_9681db1f2a_o_d.jpg

 

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Hi Mitch,

 

good to see you tackling another oldie, although not sure about the goldie bit with this one...

I know nothing about Greek air force aircraft (and possibly not really interested?), but the Hs 126 is surprisingly big for a "cooperation" plane and this kit can be turned into a real stunner with quite a bit of work.

Your start heralds a great finish... Count me in!

 

JR

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I'm progressing this and hope to have some photos soon. Another change needed is to alter the rear machine gun. The Greek Henschels had two nose mounted guns instead of the single weapon on the German aircraft. These were Brownings, probably one of the many variants of the M1919 produced as aircraft weapons in the '30's. I have some sources that indicate the rear-mounted gun was a Browning too, which seems eminently sensible. The photos I've seen where a weapon is installed don't resemble an MG15 at all. The kit weapon does purport to be an MG15, but is about 50% too long and has the wrong magazine setup, so it's a scratch job for this and the gun mount. I'll probably go for something like the single, flexibly-mounted AN-M2 mount found on early Devastators as a guide, in absence of a good, detailed picture of the real thing.

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27 minutes ago, old thumper said:

I have a feeling the rear gun was of a French design.

I'd wondered that too, before I read about the Brownings. I thought the MG15 was unlikely and had the Darne in my mind. I've read references to the Darne turning up on exported Potez XXV in Yugoslav service, and given the Greeks used the same design that they might have "standardised" on the same design. "Standardised" in terms of Greek aircrasft armament in this period is obviously a very relative term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darne_machine_gun

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's the cockpit with the scratch-built bits and pieces, a printed instrument panel and straps from the narrow tape that works on curves.

 

29695056744_6e0463f34e_o_d.jpg

 

The fuselage fits reasonably well given the age of the kit. I filled the nose gun trough: it's in the wrong place and it's the wrong shape.

30239394781_06c32ec244_o_d.jpg

 

The Greek Henschels had two nose guns, Browning-types, mounted asymmetrically to account for the breech positions as the guns were not "handed". The first stage was marking out.

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The troughs were cut in with a razor saw...

 

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...Then engraved the rest of the panel lines and drilled for the gun barrels. The bit of steel tube gives an idea of how the guns will look.

 

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The final bit was the breech covers, from KneadTite green stuff. Done - thank goodness!

 

30239349541_028ef1f2cf_o_d.jpg

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On ‎03‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 3:55 AM, Mitch K said:

I'm progressing this and hope to have some photos soon. Another change needed is to alter the rear machine gun. The Greek Henschels had two nose mounted guns instead of the single weapon on the German aircraft. These were Brownings, probably one of the many variants of the M1919 produced as aircraft weapons in the '30's. I have some sources that indicate the rear-mounted gun was a Browning too, which seems eminently sensible. The photos I've seen where a weapon is installed don't resemble an MG15 at all. The kit weapon does purport to be an MG15, but is about 50% too long and has the wrong magazine setup, so it's a scratch job for this and the gun mount. I'll probably go for something like the single, flexibly-mounted AN-M2 mount found on early Devastators as a guide, in absence of a good, detailed picture of the real thing.

 

Some intel on Greek Hs126's.

 

http://www.deutscheluftwaffe.de/Panelnachbau/Spyros Kourounis/Henschel He 126/Hs 126.html

 

It's near the bottom of the page.

 

 

Chris

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  • 1 month later...

Painted with RAF Dark Green / Dark Earth and RLM 65, which is as near as I can get.

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31049727141_ccee65e1a4_o_d.jpg

 

The national marking are left over from the Greek PZL build - the roundels from the aluminium-finished example are perfectly sized for this. I've got a set of white numbers in the stash, but getting the sigmas is going to take some ingenuity and I suspect some home-made masks!

 

31049703701_e72cb0d401_o_d.jpg

 

30356537893_82694e6f64_o_d.jpg

 

 

 

 

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That does look very nice, and I love the extra interior detail. For some reason my Dad was very fond of this type so it's doubly interesting for me. Looking forward to the struttery!

 

Can you construct the sigmas out of fragments of white numbers and letters from spare sheets? It's still fiddly but you can decide if the fiddling has worked before you get near the model!

 

Regards,

Adrian

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Hi Mitch, 

this is an impressive build! I am amazed at how large and open the cockpit is.

Great detailing of the office, by the way!!!

 

JR

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10 minutes ago, jean said:

Hi Mitch, 

this is an impressive build! I am amazed at how large and open the cockpit is.

Great detailing of the office, by the way!!!

 

JR

Thanks Jean, there's a lot of room in the cockpit, so there's actually some reason to put in the detail, unlike those cases where you can't see a thing!

 

At some point I've got to add some gun barrels and scratchbuild a Darne MG for the observer.

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3 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

That does look very nice, and I love the extra interior detail. For some reason my Dad was very fond of this type so it's doubly interesting for me. Looking forward to the struttery!

 

Can you construct the sigmas out of fragments of white numbers and letters from spare sheets? It's still fiddly but you can decide if the fiddling has worked before you get near the model!

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks! It might yet come to strips of white decals, Adrian, but I'm going to have a go with making stencils first. Back in  the Bronze Age when I was first writing scientific reports (before clever word processors) I had a printing machine that had sigmas, mus and whatnot, and would do them in  black or white on clear film. Be very handy now!

 

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This is now in jeopardy. One of the cabane struts has vanished and I have doubts about whether I can scratch one up that's sufficiently accurate to not skew up everything so the plane looks like a half-chewed toffee.

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