1/72 Hasegawa Ju 88 R-2 Nightfighter

[Lanmi]

Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by nightfighters. Special credit for this goes to my early reading of Len Deighton's novel "Bomber" in which he describes in great detail armament and shells for the MG FF guns in the nose of Löwenherz’s Junkers 88R, its antennas and the entire mechanical and organizational process of night fighter operations. One of my favorite books to this day.
I'm joining the party with this awesome Hasegawa model, and a few aftermarket sets, Edwards masks that I will combine for the clear parts, and a nice and delicate brass radar antenna. Here are the first pictures of the box and parts, I have started chopping from the sprues and making sub-assemblies that will be easier to paint, hopefully in similar manner as @Walter is doing on the neighboring topic. 

 

 

It has certainly an interested cammo. 

 

 

 

It has squiggly decals, but knowing hasegawa they are thick and as you can see they are a bit yellow I might go for a freehand painting session. Firstly I will try with UV lamp to reduce yellow hue a bit. 

 

 

Firstly I bought PE areals but I will go with the right ones. 

 

Just discovered, it has some handwriting in German on the backside, not sure what it says. 

 

 

That is for now, hope I will have an update soon,

 

 

[pizzapaolo]

Brave paint scheme, that makes me scared just thinking about it  Don't think I have the airbrush or skills to attempt the squiggles! Best of luck on it thought, never seen this boxing or decal option before, is interesting

[Walter]

A great topic, looking forward to it. 

[vppelt68]

A paint scheme - probably it was a work in progress in real life - that'll be the icing of the cake in the Gallery! V-P

[stevesoutar]

I look forward to watching your build @Lanmi - I have just been searching for a JU88 model with the BMW radial engines fitted, and it looks as though this Hasegawa kit is the only one available in 1/72 (my search led me here as well) 

 

My next job is to find someone who still has a kit for sale - unless I can find another way of sourcing or converting the radial engine pods for my Revell Ju88-C (which is another possibility)

 

Asyou can see in many contemporary photos, the BMW engines used to coat the entire undercarriage bay in heavy black soot - and I have seen grainy photos with thick exhaust staining on the upper wings and tailplanes as well !

 

I think you can see filthy black carbon build up on the leading edge of the tailplanes in this picture ...  I think this is probably a Ju88-G4, with the large square tail fin, but powered by BMW radials, instead of the Jumo 210 inverted V engines included in most Ju-88 kits

 

 

 

[vppelt68]

@stevesoutar Could a Ju 188 kit also include the engines you're looking for?

[JWM]

On 1/4/2023 at 3:58 PM, vppelt68 said:

@stevesoutar Could a Ju 188 kit also include the engines you're looking for?

Indeed, the Iteleri kit has both V Junkers and radial BMW engines, so buying that one you can do the variant A with Junkers engines and got BMW engines for a G1 . 

Regards

J-W

Edited January 6, 2023 by JWM

[stevesoutar]

On 05/01/2023 at 21:31, JWM said:

Indeed, the Iteleri kit has both V Junkers and radial BMW engines, so buying that one you can do the variant A with Junkers engines and got BMW engines for a G1 . 

Regards

J-W

Thanks - yes, I found an Italieri Ju-118 A1-E1 kit, and those BMW motors are now mine. 😊

 

I couldn't find any copies of the Hasegawa kit for sale in the UK - and postage costs from the US or Australia are ridiculously expensive for a package that would weigh a few ounces $50 for a rare kit, plus another $50 postage is just mental - I would have tried scratchbuilding rather than pay that much for a 1/72 kit

 

But I have a spare Ju-188 kit ... and some nice radial engines for my next Ju-88 build

[Lanmi]

Not as much progress as I wanted because of various business, family and modelling distractions along the way. At least, I managed to finish some long overdue projects, and started a few others. 

Anyhow, thanks for your comments, ref photos and parallel discussion. I've finished painting the interior and I assembled the fuselage together. I find that the additional sprues carrying distinctive parts for R-2 version are not fitting so nicely as the rest of the parts. It can be easily seen on the following picture as canopy fairing sits on the fuselage. Also cowling halves will have to have receive some putty/sanding routine. But, nothing too hard to fix. 

 

 

[vppelt68]

Nice to see progress! V-P