Messerschmitt Bf 109E-4 9/JG26 from Gerhardt Schopfel, Calais August 1940

[Basilisk]

How  time fly's. Five years ago I participated in my first GB - the 75th Battle of Britain anniversary GB where I built a Spitfire and a Hurricane. This time I like to change sides and build a Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109E-4 from the 9th Staffel, Jagdgeschwader 26 flown by Staffelkapitän  Oberleutnant Gerhard Schopfel. The unit was stationed at Calais during August 1940 and the aircraft received its 12th kill marking on 18th of August.

 

 

 

There is a nice colour photo of the Bf 1-9E-3 flown by Walter Blume with the same early theater markings.

 

Gerhard Schopfel was born in on 19th December 1912 and died 90 years old on 17 May 2003. He achieved 45 aerial victories all at the western front. There is a lengthy Wikipedia page covering his life which makes interesting reading.

 

I will use the 1/48 Eduard Bf 109E-4 kit and Techmod decals to build this aircraft more or less OOB as I really like to finish this model within the time frame of this GB.

Cheers, Peter

Edited July 5, 2020 by Basilisk

[Ozzy]

Nice looking kit Peter, looking forward to your build as I nearly brought this kit a few years ago for the 109 GB. I ended up getting a later variant as this one probably because of the BoB connection was a lot more.

[Tim Moff]

Cool - looks a great build. Will follow along as I have the Eduard 84166 Kit for a build and have never built Eduard, so be looking for tips!

 

 

[Greg Law]

Interesting I just finished yellow eleven.  Good luck with it.

[franky boy]

Nice choice Peter. 

 

Im planning to build the E-1 version of this kit for the GB so will follow with interest. 

 

James

[Basilisk]

This is my first Eduard 109E build as well and I looked through some builds on the web which does help in knowing the pitfalls.

 

I made a start on this build getting the cockpit together. First a coat of black primer, followed by silver, chipping fluids and RLM 02.

It was the first time I used chipping fluids so I tried it first in the wheel wells. Even though I used lacquer paint, the chipping worked reasonable well.

 

And the cockpit after chipping.

The chipping may looks a bit heavy handed, but after applying washes, filters and some weathering, I think it will blend in nicely.

Cheers, Peter

 

 

[Valkyrie]

Nice start and the wheel wells are done brilliantly. Chipping fluid could be on an impending spree

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Thats looking good Peter I really like the wheel wells. 

[Basilisk]

On 7/26/2020 at 10:54 PM, Valkyrie said:

Nice start and the wheel wells are done brilliantly. Chipping fluid could be on an impending spree

I will certainly use chipping fluid again in the future as it can be very effective.

 

Finished the painting and detailing of the cockpit.

And a test assembly.

The IP is from Yahu and the rest is mostly from the kit. But I decided to not use all the PE parts and go with the plastic version as it gives more of a 3D effect.

 

Also built the HWG harness which is a bit fiddly in 1/48 scale. But I found keeping the PE parts on the fret when attaching the harness keeps the assembly more manageable.

 

And here the finished harness compared to the Eduard PE version from the kit.

Of interest is also the scale length of the Harness compared to the PE version. The HGW harness still needs some filters to make them look "used".

 

The next step is to get it all together.

Cheers, Peter

[GREG DESTEC]

Looking good Peter 👍

 

By coincidence the 2015 BoB GB was the first GB I took part in! I built the 1/48 Airfix Emil in the same markings as you are doing.

 

The Eduard kit looks a lot sharper than the Airfix one. I love those seat belts.

 

Cheers Greg