Heinkel He 112 V9. Spain. 1938 (Finished)

[Pete F]

For my first ever group build entry I am going to attempt the Heller Heinkel He 112 B0/B1 (kit reference 240). 

 

 

According to Scalemates this was the original 1979 boxing. Note the swastika blacked over by hand.

 

Earlier this year I bought a set of Spanish Civil War decals (Xtradecal set X72274).

 

 

The primary reason at the time was for an Ju87A that I acquired but had Japanese markings in the box. Once this group build was on the horizon I looked at my small Heller stash and the He112 built as the V9 (B series prototype) and flown in 1938 by Hauptmann Harro Harder in Spain seemed like a good option.

 

 

The parts are almost completely flash free and have no obvious sink marks that I have found yet.

 

 

Overall the level of detail is impressive for the time.

 

 

Options exist for different noses. I shall be using the one on the right.

 

 

 

More great detail. Note the interior cockpit sculpting.

 

 

A fly in the ointment. The aircraft I am modelling had no antenna but I don't know any way of filling the hole in the canopy.

 

 

 

I like the instructions and the paint suggestions. They speak of a different time.

 

My next post will be a short history of this particular aircraft.
 

[Toryu]

Different time indeed! Boy, were we naive ... and happy with the results! This was a beautiful airplane, allegedly superior to the 109, but Messerschmitt had better RLM connections. Looking forward to your model.

[Jinxman]

Something like Kristal Klear by Microscale may help with the canopy - nice looking kit as well.

[Pete F]

3 minutes ago, Jinxman said:

Kristal Klear by Microscale

Thanks I will look into that.

[Wez]

Good choice Pete and a great colour scheme too!

 

Thanks for choosing this for your first group build.

 

Welcome and good luck.

[Foxbat]

I built this one back in the dim and distant. Even being a ham fisted yoof didn't stop it being a nice build. Looking forward to yours, those decals look great.

 

Andy

[Rabbit Leader]

Great to see you choose this Heller GB as your first Group Build @Pete F, I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself whilst building your kit and commenting on others as theirs progress along. I must warn you, once you start, it’s quite difficult to stop! The Matchbox II GB was my first foray into these events and although I don’t have the time to compete in each GB, I do mark the calendar in advance whenever a Classic kit one comes around. 
 

Lovely first up choice with the He112. I’m building the same kit too so it’ll be good to see how we both fare. That canopy hole is quite small so Crystal Clear should work, however I’d be more inclined to drop a small amount of CA and smooth it over with Micromesh. 
 

Big welcome to this GB and best of luck getting the little Heinkel finished.

Cheers.. Dave

[fightersweep]

Great to see another Heinkel He112 in the GB. One I've not built myself, but do have one in the stash. My school mate had one back in the early 80s. I remember being quite jealous, but then he got way more pocket money than me. Love the markings you'll be going for. Very unique and unusual. I'm looking forward to this.

 

Great photos too. They clearly back up what fantastic kits Heller were producing in that time period. For 1/72 aircraft alone, I think they were ahead of the pack.

 

Steve

[JOCKNEY]

Delighted to see you joining a GB for the first time, please beware they are extremely addictive !

 

If you are going to use something like Clearfix to fix the canopy, a little drop using a cocktail stick will make that unwanted hole disappear.

 

Good luck with the build

 

Cheers Pat

[Pete F]

As promised, some context in the form of a very brief history of this particular aircraft.

 

In 1933 Herman Göring issued a specification for a single seat fighter. Heinkel responded with the He 112 but, in 1936, Messerscmit won the contract with the BF 109. As a result  the He 112 only had a limited production run. 

 

 

The initial A series (example above) was superseded by the B series with the familiar bubble top canopy. 

 

The aircraft that I am modelling, V9, was an early prototype of the B series. Shown above with registration D-IGSI.  From 1937 it toured Europe in an effort to make sales and then, in 1938, saw action in the Spanish Civil War. 

 

 

In Spain was given the code 8.2 and piloted by Hauptmann Harro Harder, who was later killed during the Battle of Britain. 

 

 

Harder decorated V9 with his personal insignia - a swastika within the Nationalist black disk.

 

Following the Spanish Civil War, V9 resumed its European sales tour but in February 1939 crashed and was destroyed, during a demonstration flight in Hungary.

 

The story of the Heinkel He 112 is occasionally described as one of the great ‘what ifs’ of military aviation history. There is a school of thought that the superior range of the He 112 (1,100 km versus 660 km) may have given the Luftwaffe a better chance of gaining air superiority during the Battle of Britain.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Pete F
Minor formatting edit

[alt-92]

Not to mention quite a bit of confusion at the OC folks with that elliptical wing.

 

(there are rumours that the He.70 wing planform and subsequent NACA reports in the US influenced the design of the Spitfire wing - although the airfoil section is much thinner on Shenstones design, he was certainly inspired by Prandtls work)

[Pete F]

It is a Saturday in the Autumn of 1979.

 

I have just walked back from Ryde with my latest kit. I bought it in Mainstones in Union Street. One of three model shops in the town, not counting Woolies.

My model is a new one of those French Heller kits, a He 112, whatever that is. I have to smuggle it past Dad who is busy in his newsagents shop. He wouldn't approve of Heller. He doesn't much like anything French - Camembert, garlic, onion soup (but their wine is okay). Something to do with them surrendering in the war rather too quickly.

 

I go to my room and put on my new Blondie album, Eat to the Beat. Dreaming is number two in the charts. 

 

I start my kit…

 

 

This photo deliberately shows my Swann-Morton number 3 handle with a number 10 blade as I have managed to cut myself, on the finger, with the back end of the the blade. This would be okay except I have done the same thing with every single model I have ever made (one way or another). I think the modelling gods require blood. 

 

Blood and Plastic!

[Rabbit Leader]

Nice progress and backdated story Pete. I’ll be hooking into mine in a day or two so am watching intently. Looks good so far, let me know if you run outta blood, don’t want you to collapse mid-way through the build. 
Cheers.. Dave 

[Desk Flyer]

On 9/28/2020 at 6:31 PM, Pete F said:

 

 

 

 

I like the instructions and the paint suggestions. They speak of a different time.

 

My next post will be a short history of this particular aircraft.
 

 

That's a funny looking spitfire you got there 🤔

 

Great subject, very interesting! I'll be watching your build 🙂

[Pete F]

Cockpit done and ready for the fuselage to be assembled. 

 

My general rule these days is that if the canopy is to be modelled open, or if it is an aircraft where there is a lot on show in the cockpit (e.g. a He 111) then I use PE seatbelts. Otherwise some masking tape does the trick. On this occasion (closed canopy) I did some experimentation with creating buckles. As can be seen it wasn't very successful. The buckles are way too big and it looks like the pilot is ‘havin' hoops’.

 

 

Anyway I was going to redo them but when I test fitted the canopy I can't see much through the 40 year old plastic thickness and in fact the hint of the buckles worked quite well. So they stay. Gene Hunt will be the one to pilot this model for its lifetime.

 

 

I couldn't find a colour cockpit reference for the He 112 and only a small number of BW, all from the same shoot. I’m fairly sure the He 112 didn’t have a red firing button but what's the point without some artistic licence.

 

The interior was painted with Model Air RLM 02 (71.050) which is very close to the kit plastic colour. I did a bit of a dry brush (so 1980s) with Model Colour Black (70.950) to bring out the raised detail and then some Army Painter Dark Tone (WP1136) to wash. It is all pretty understated but that’s how I like it. BTW I really like Army Painter washes for this sort of work. I use Florey Washes for the big stuff but Army Painter are my favourite for things like figures and cockpit detail.

Edited October 6, 2020 by Pete F

[Rabbit Leader]

Looks great Pete and I agree that three’s no point wasting too much time on closed 1/72 cockpits. I’ll have to look into these Army Painter washes, sounds interesting. 
Cheers.. Dave 

[TonyOD]

4 hours ago, Pete F said:

I did some experimentation with creating buckles.

I like that effect. Mind if I ask how you did it?

[Pete F]

9 minutes ago, TonyOD said:

I like that effect. Mind if I ask how you did it?

I used the method from this tutorial:

 

http://www.ratomodeling.com.br/articles/belts/

 

with some copper wire I found and Tamiya masking tape stained with a brown wash. I wrapped the wire around some fine tweezers - but not fine enough I fear.

 

Mine are nowhere near as good as the ones shown in he tutorial but this was my first attempt. In future I will try and make the buckles smaller and maybe the belts a little wider. The copper wire could be a narrower gauge.

[TonyOD]

Thanks. I've found fuse wire useful for all sorts of things, the 5 amp stuff is pretty flimsy, might give it a spin next time I do an open cockpit. For my current build I nicked an idea (from @AdrianMF if I remember correctly), wine bottle foil makes great seatbelts, just the right level of malleability. In fact the mrs had rather obligingly bought a bottle with a label stuck on the foil that had little lines printed on it just the right width apart, handy! 

 

I've just bagged that same black boxing of this kit (with the box censored likewise), the decals have had it and there isn't much aftermarket out there, so I'm watching your Spanish Civil War build with interest!

Edited October 6, 2020 by TonyOD

[Pete F]

At this stage of the build I have to make some decisions that may be of interest to others building this kit. They both concern interior detailing.

 

 

1. Radiator intake and outlet. This takes a bit of getting right as the front grill does not naturally sit as far in as you might like. If I’d known I would have taken more care. It doesn't really matter too much as the gap between this part and the lower fuselage will be easily dealt with by Mr Surfacer. However it wasn't until I’d assembled the lower wing that I realised the rear outlet is very open and exposes the sink marks on the back of the intake grill part. I improvised with a piece of rectangular poly and a small piece of sheet above to close it off. This will allow me to put a grill in later if I wish. Probably not as it looks okay - if not very accurate. There are a lack of photo references in this area.

 

 

2. Wheel wells. This is possibly a bigger issue. From the start I didn't intend to box the wheel wells. My intention was to either leave them as is, or scratch a small amount of detail on the underside of the wing to make it less bare. However the sticking point is those cannons. Heinkel saw fit to run the cannon across the top of the wheel well. This is demonstrated in the photo by a cocktail stick. They only managed that because the wing profile is so thick. On the kit this means that you can see through the cannon ports to the wheel wells. Not sure if I like that so I thought It would be easy to scratch a cannon end to block the port. But then the cannon should continue over the well and that means I have to do some sort of boxing. Ummph!

 

Not sure yet what I’ll do but I suspect I am overthinking it. I need to step away for a while.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Pete F

[fightersweep]

Thanks for the detailing heads up! I just got two of these through the post and was going the OOB route, but I might throw a little extra work in myself. Looking great so far!

 

Steve

[Rabbit Leader]

Yes, we’ll done Pete. I’m scratching my head about boxing in wheel wells, however those wing cannons did not cross my mind at all! Thanks for pointing that out. Finding a good image of this area is quite hard to come by. Perhaps someone reading this might pop something up. 
 

Cheers.. Dave 

[Graham Boak]

Not so sure about that range - where could they put all that fuel?    There was a similar story about the He.100, but the numbers show that this was nonsense.  As the He.112 wasn't 100% better than the Bf109, I think this range claim is equally over-egging.   Apparently it did handle better than the Bf109, and I think it prettier, but it still only had the Jumo, so would have been totally outclassed  by 1940.

[iJones]

On 9/29/2020 at 9:35 PM, Pete F said:

The story of the Heinkel He 112 is occasionally described as one of the great ‘what ifs’ of military aviation history. There is a school of thought that the superior range of the He 112 (1,100 km versus 660 km) may have given the Luftwaffe a better chance of gaining air superiority during the Battle of Britain.

In Finland the He 112 has been quite controversial aircraft since the war. Many historians see it as a lost opportunity and almost like a giant broom which would have swept the Soviet bombers from the sky. In reality it would have been anything but.

Firstly, the performance figures were very optimistic and secondly it would have been extremely difficult to keep operational in Winter war. Fortunately it was much too expensive for us (3x$ Fokker D.XXI but not really better). According to Romanians it was unsuitable for dogfights. One Finnish aviation historian called it a sheep in wolf’s clothing. 😃

Looks nice though.
 

[dogsbody]

I've always wondered what the He112 could have been if fitted with a DB 601 or even a Jumo 211.

 

 

 

 

Chris