Bf-109G-14, 1/72 Hasegawa, Erich Hartmann "White 1"

[opus999]

Bf-109G-14 | 1/72 | Hasegawa

Hptm. Erich Hartmann, Pilot | 4./ JG52, Csór, Hungary, October 1944

 

I finished this on 5/17/2020.  It is one of a two-in-one Hasagawa "Finnish Aces" kit my wife gave me for Christmas.  The two Finnish planes looked so much alike that I decided to make one Erich Hartmann's "White 1".  I've wanted to do one of his black tulip aircraft for quite a while because my dad built Jo-Han's interpretation of Erich Hartmann's "Double Chevron" and it hung on my ceiling throughout my childhood.  In fact, it was the only German fighter on my ceiling, so to me it was synonymous with "German fighter".  I was able to find some after market decals, but my biggest hurdle was figuring out how to paint the mottling on the side because there are so many interpretations out there!  In the end I found the instructions to Eduard's kit with "White 1" in it and followed those.  From Eduard's instructions:

 

"Erich Hartmann, the most successful fighter plane pilot of all time, first joined the 7. Staffel of JG 52 on October 10th, 1942.  He remained with JG 52 until the end of World War Two; in fact he became the commander of its I. Gruppe.  The total count of his shot down aircraft was 352.  For his exceptional success he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds.  After WWII he was transferred to the POW camp in the Ural mountains of the Soviet Union and was not released until 1955.  The following year he joined the ranks of the West German Luftwaffe.  He became commander of JG 71, the first fighter plane Luftwaffe squadron equipped with jet-powered fighter aircraft.  He retired in 1970 and died on Sept. 20th 1993.  Standard camouflage of Hartmann's "white 1" Luftwaffe fighter plane was complemented by a black tulip with white outline situated at the nose of the aircraft; this was at the time of his command of 4. Staffel.  On the left side, underneath the cockpit, there was a heart with Hartmann's wife's name written over it.  The yellow bottom parts of the wing tip and the yellow stripe around the back part of the fuselage marked the aircraft serving on the Eastern Front. "

 

The Kit was terrific! Very little seam work was needed, in fact the seam work was not because of Kit issues, but my own Ham-handedness gluing it together.  The only issues with the kit were a sunken area on the bottom behind the wing piece that needed to be filled and the canopy, which didn't fit really well.  There was no detail on the cockpit sidewalls, nor in the wheel wells.  I added my own detail in the wheel wells, but it didn't turn out quite the way I wanted, so that was disappointing.  Eduard showed the mottles to be randomly shaped, and I wanted to avoid the appearance of "dots" -- I tried, but didn't quite achieve it, so that was a little disappointing too (but I was able to do it on this model's sister build here: https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235075176-bf-109g-6-172-hasegawa-hemmo-leino/ )

 

This build is the first, and last time I've used Peddinghaus decals.  They were absolutely terrible.  The white was off register with the other colors, they were terribly thick and would not settle down with my strongest solvent and ultimately left terrible wrinkles just behind the propeller spinner that I had to cut out and paint black instead.  They had a strange rubbery texture and were strangely pixelated like they were printed on a dot-matrix printer.  Worst of all, the white was translucent so that the mottles under the white one were clearly visible.  In the end I only used the Tulip and heart decals and had to raid my stash to find the right decals for the rest of the aircraft.  I had to mask and paint the white "1" -- thank goodness it wasn't an "8" or something like that!!  The spiral on the spinner was so terrible I had to paint it instead, which was extremely difficult.

 

No WIP for this build.

 

Finishing: Seam filling with Super Glue

Paint; Mr. Surfacer Black 1500 primer > Mr. Color RLM 74/75/76 > Mr. Color RLM 70 (Propeller) > Hataka RLM 04

Decals: Peddinghaus Erich Hartmann

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I couldn't find good pictures of White 1, so I did minimum weathering.

 

 

 

 

 

Masking for the white "1":

 

 

A comparison of the terrible spiral decal and my hand-painted version:

 

 

 

Thanks for looking!  Comments, questions and constructive criticism welcomed!

 

 

Edited June 14, 2020 by opus999
Added Link

[Hairtrigger]

Great result...  The subtle weathering works a treat.

[SAT69]

Beautiful model. Excellent weathering!

[Wulfman]

Despite of all your tribulations, a very good Gustav build. Lovely job on the mottling. Very nice work !

 

Wulfman

[Vlad]

Looks very good! The old Hasegawa kits still have their advantages and look like 109s when finished as well as you have. I built two of them from a twin-pack a few years ago when I was getting back into aircraft modelling, they're still on my shelf even though my technique has improved a lot since then.

[Aces High]

Superb! You've done a great job, well worth the efforts.

[opus999]

15 hours ago, Vlad said:

Looks very good! The old Hasegawa kits still have their advantages and look like 109s when finished as well as you have. I built two of them from a twin-pack a few years ago when I was getting back into aircraft modelling, they're still on my shelf even though my technique has improved a lot since then.

I've done these 109's, a Ki-43 Oscar and a CF-104 by Hasegawa since I returned to the hobby, and if the molds are newer than about 1990, they are a really good value!  They usually go together with a minimum of work and have pretty good detail externally.  

 

On 6/14/2020 at 3:32 PM, Hairtrigger said:

Great result...  The subtle weathering works a treat.

 

On 6/14/2020 at 3:41 PM, SAT69 said:

Beautiful model. Excellent weathering!

Thank you! I am teaching myself the art of subtlety with weathering.  I'm glad I'm getting there....  

On 6/14/2020 at 3:44 PM, Wulfman said:

Despite of all your tribulations, a very good Gustav build. Lovely job on the mottling. Very nice work !

 

Wulfman

Thanks, I was initially a little disappointed with the mottling, but when I look at it with the naked eye (instead of the magnifying glasses), it turned out OK!