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AIRFIX 1/24 JUNKERS JU-87B / TROP
The first time I saw this model was in a Scale Aircraft Modeller magazine. The author of the article went to great lengths explaining the kit as it looked out of the box. The thing that struck me most was the statement that it was the best kit of a Ju-87 around and certainly one of the most accurate. Airfix had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure it was done right. So naturally I had to have one. I ordered one from my local hobby shop and with in a couple of weeks it arrived. We opened it right there as the owner and good friend of mine had not seen one before. The first thing that struck me was the huge amount of plastic you got in the box. The next was how HUGE it was. As always building began with the cockpit. The seat that came with the kit was ok but needed to be spruced up. Examining picture of the real thing l notice the bar on the top of the seat was missing.
So I took some evergreen plastic rod and added the missing details to the seat. I then proceed to assemble the floor. I noticed how plain the floor looked so I took some artistic license and added some plastic strips to the floor to take away some of the plainness.
I then painted it RLM 66 added some of the other parts and dry brushed it. I then proceed to add all of the other parts to finish the floor off. I used Eduard 1/24th German seatbelt set for the pilot and gunner seats.
I then turned my attention to the cockpit side walls. The walls come separate from the fuselage and where suppose to be glued to the sides of the floor and the whole thing put into the fuselage as one assembly. But I chose a different route and glued the walls to the inside of the fuselage. I then sprayed both sidewalls RLM 66 and painted in the details and did some dry brushing to bring out the details.
At this time I also did the instrument panel painting it the cockpit colour and doing some detail painting. Now all the cockpit painting and detailing is done its time to assemble the fuselage. Assembly was easier then I thought. I installed the cockpit floor assembly to one half then glued the two halves together and let set over night.
The kit firewall for me left much to be desired. Not saying that it was not good but it was not up to my standards. So scratched build a new one. The new scratch build is much better compared to the original kit version. I cut the attachment for the bomb swing arms off the original part and transferred it to the new firewall and then detailed it with Evergreen styrene strips, brass wire and solder. I then painted it RLM 02 grey green and painted all the details.
The kit comes with a very excellent Jumo 211 engine. The detail of this engine is very good considering the age of this kit Airfix should be given a pat on the back for this. Assembly was pretty straight forward and once the main engine block was done I painted it Testors euro grey. I then weathered it with browns and greys.
The radiator was good but I wanted to take it one step forward. I cut out, filed and sanded all the plastic between the shutters. I then made a new back with plastic painted black and used aluminium edged screen in front to represent a better radiator. I painted the radiator RLM 66 then once that dried the new radiator face was installed. Look pretty good to me.
I finish assembling the rest of the engine which in the end turned out to be a kit in its self.
I assembled the propeller (trust me it’s huge) and then test fitted it to the engine bearing arms (painted RLM 02). I assembled and attached the outer wing stubs with the landing gear. At this time I also assembled the horizontal tail unit and the rudder.
Here is a look at the fully installed cockpit. I left the front windscreen dash off for now.
The wing gun bay is a pretty simple affair lacking any other detail other then the structure and the gun. I spruced it up with more structural details, some plumbing and a compressed air bottle.
Here we have the completed assembly with engine on it for yet another test fit and what the heck just to see how it all looks so far.
The paint scheme I choose was for a Ju 87 B2 aircraft code S7+ KH of 1/STG 3 in a North Africa paint scheme. After painting the bottom RLM 65 I then painted the top RLM 79. Now some aircraft arriving to North Africa where still in their European paint scheme and had RLM 79 quickly painted on. Where as other aircraft including this one arrived already painted in the dessert paint. Depending on squadrons some left them this way while others got some Italian olive green paint and painted it on to add more camouflage. The under wing and fuselage band identifying markings where painted on next.
Some of the kit decals where used and the rest were hand made form black and white decal film (yes I know that the swastika is small but it’s was all I had at the time but replaced it later with bigger ones).
I had to make the squadron badge on my printer. It was a simple basically printed the black out the put it on a disk of white decal.
The finished bird. It only took me a couple of years to finish as I put it away for a while. Now I've completed it, and it turned out pretty nice.
Close up of the engine. With all the detail work I did to it.
Additional images:
© David Robbins 2007 |
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