Hasegawa 1/48 Macchi C.202 'Folgore'

The Macchi MC.202 Folgore was an Alfa-Romeo engined DB 601-A1, license built from Daimler Benz, 1,175 h.p. inline engine replacement for the MC.200 Saetta. It continued the form, function and lineage of the MC.200 radial engined fighter built by Aeronautica Macchi, and subcontractors Ambrosini and Breda in Italy. The MC.202 initial prototype flew in April of 1942.  Its initial armament consisted of two fuselage mounted Breda-SAFAT .50 caliber (12.7mm) guns – a bit light compared to its contemporaries.

The prototype C.202 (serial # M.M. 445(2) flew in the summer of 1940. The first production aircraft rolled off the assembly line in May 1941. It was well liked by its pilots and served in the Mediterranean, Russian and North African fronts.

Hasegawa released Macchi C.202 "Folgore” in April 1994. It was quite well received and a big seller in  1/48th scale kits for many years since it provides an accurately detailed Macchi 202 with a nice OOB cockpit. After building a few Hasegawa MC.202/205 airframes using combinations of resin cockpits and the kit plastic with some Eduard etched I found no matter what you do with the cockpit, whether you replace the seat or just add a set of color seatbelts you will be quite pleased with the results OOB. There are some complete resin cockpits available as well from SBS Models and Squadron that are very nice.

 Hasegawa released its 1/48th scale MC.202 Folgore, kit # 9132 in early 1994 – almost 19 years ago! It was one of the best kits of its time as far as fit and finish. It captures all the complex shapes accurately and the fit and finish are excellent. The cockpit is complete and unless you want to detail that area it is sufficient for most modelers. The gunsight needs improvement and the wheel well area could have more details since this is a distinctive area for the Macchi MC.2XX series of aircraft. The wing lights should have been moulded on the clear parts tree with a cut out on the wing tips. This would have improved this kit since changing it for a more realistic appearance requires cutting the wing tip and some extra effort. Hasegawa in its current 1/48th scale kit releases has changed its approach for wing tip lights in new releases to now use clear plastic for the wing tip lights.  It is a fast build due to its low parts count and good fit. The fit is very good, but not perfect, so some putty or gap filling is required but it is a minor issue.

The MC.202 Folgore’s tail wheel comes in a few varieties and Hasegawa provides alternate parts for this. The kit’s cockpit in an OOB configuration looks very nice. I use resin cockpits frequently for the improved details or to replace a deficient kit plastic cockpit. This kit, and the Hasegawa MC.202/205 series, does not motivate me to do so since it is quite nice OOB.

 The exhausts are undersized and for some “unusable”. There is a resin replacement from Ultracast # 48119 (which I used in this build), that provides a much better detailed and quite robust exhaust. It is a clear improvement on a very visible area.  The Quickboost alternative gives hollowed out exhaust tips but looks a bit flat in dimensions compared to the Ultracast unit.

The undercarriage legs and landing gear are riddled with deep ejector pin marks requiring a bit of clean-up. The undercarriage legs holes have to be filled and sanded or replaced by a white metal replacement.

This kit is nearly perfect in shape and dimensions and shows off some of the finest surface detail you can get. There are some small errors or omissions, Fixes for all of these are detailed in Mauricio Di Terlizzi’s book, Macchi MC 202 Folgore, Aviolibre Special #3.

The instructions are excellent, very typical of Hasegawa’s time proven instructions. There’s nothing new here since it is composed of well detailed explanations and clear illustrations. The parts count is low and will surprise you because the build goes very fast as a result of the minimal parts count.

The kit cockpit is nicely laid out and includes decals for the instrument clusters. The cockpit and sidewalls have adequate detail. I only say adequate because the Macchi 200 to 205 series seat used a unique restraint system composed of chains, belts and a seat pad that is missing from the OOB contents. You can fix this with the Eduard Color Zoom set or with a resin replacement seat from Ultracast with cast seat belts.

There are lots of other very nice details Hasegawa provides like the part # B17 magnetic compass, a nice trim wheel, etc. with its OOB parts. Many resin cockpit sets actually have you use some of the Hasegawa plastic cockpit parts because they are that well moulded.

The wing subassembly that you build in step 3 has an adequate main wheel well that captures a small amount of the complex look of a C.202/205’s accessory and main wheel well bay details. But, compared to the photos of the actual area it does look “boxed-in” and flatly detailed. If you look at close ups from actual aircraft or had the opportunity to put your head underneath this area you will quickly recognize the compromise made in 2D injection plastic parts compared to the actual very busy 3D look of the MC.202 main landing gear bay. There are some significant electrical wires and color coded pneumatic hoses for its ignition system for example that are missing.

Again, I would hope this would be the area some resin caster with superior abilities like Vector, Pavla or Aires/Quickboost could give us a big hand with by supplying a simple resin bay enhancement piece. Since the kit has been out for a few years I am surprised none have been released. Now that Roy is back in business maybe Barracuda can help us out – if he does it will be awesome!

I did have some trouble working with the part C16 assembly which represents some of the engine and nose bearing support struts. Although there’s not much Hasegawa detail in this area there was enough to give me some assembly fit mishaps especially with the main landing gear struts and the part C16 tubular supports. If you try to add some wire or bass guitar strings to this area to detail the “snake pit” use caution because it gets cramped like the real aircraft and can affect some of the kit plastic assembly. A color painting guide for the pneumatic and electrical hoses is available on the “Stormo” website.

The landing gear is well detailed and the main gear door mounting frames are acceptable making a tradeoff between cost and accuracy. Perhaps I am still thinking about how Italeri approached this area and comparing it to Hasegawa’s effort? I was impressed with Italeri’s work (on their similar airframe Macchi MC.200 kit) in this area using photo-etch to mount the main landing gear wheel covers to the landing gear. Italeri provided a solid mount of the doors to their respective struts using etched metal while maintaining in-scale thickness and improved detailing. The Italeri combination of superbly moulded plastic and etched metal supports or attachment points gives an excellent representation of the landing gear and doors. It even included a tail wheel as a two part component permitting ease of painting and enhanced detail which is usually lost when a tail wheel is moulded as a one piece component as found in many other kits.

There are some areas where I hoped to see more detail such as the clear light at the rear tip of the fuselage, the butterfly doors on the air intake area but the kit does not represent them.

The kit provides marking options for two aircraft, a MC.202, Regia Aeronautica airframe from 363^rd  Squadriglia, 150^th Gruppo, 53^rd  Stormo and one from the, 153^rd Gruppo,  both in  Nocciola Chiaro 4 (Light Hazel Tan 4 – FS30219) upper surfaces over Grigio Azzurro Chiaro 1 (Light Blue Gray 1 – FS36314) undersurfaces.  

 I was very pleased with Hasegawa on this kit. It is a very beautiful aircraft and they captured its lines and look perfectly. They have done a really nice job on this kit. It isn't over-engineered, nor are there any serious shortcuts taken either. The kit gave me a lot of building pleasure and added a nice kit to my  Italian Regia Aeronautica collection. Unfortunately it has been some time since Hasegawa has released any Macchi 202 kits. It looks like Hasegawa is reissuing its 1/48th scale products that were released in the 1990’s. I noticed the Hasegawa MC.202 series kits in their original markings has been re-issued. Recently, I found  # 9132 MC.202 was re-issued in 2012 with little fanfare and can be found selling for $30.00 or so at internet discounters.  It is frequently found for sale on eBay but the prices including the new higher priority shipping rates makes it undesirable for me to eBay for these kits.

There are unfortunately very few available aftermarket decals for the MC.202. Given it was released almost 19 years ago not much seems to have materialized for the MC.202 in aftermarket decals. There are some terrific and colorful schemes that I would like to build. There have been decals released by Tauro, Skymodels 48015 Macchi MC.202 decal with 36 different C.202 options, Superscale 48-659, 48-660 and 48-862,  AeroMaster 48-189, (MSAP) Ministry of Small Aircraft Production 4853 are some choices.

I replaced the kit cockpit with a new pit from True Details. It was a perfect replacement and added a lot especially providing the unique look of the MC.202 restraining chains, seat belts and seat cushion that is missing from the OOB Hasegawa kit. 

The Hasegawa fuselage halves closed with no concerns coming from the aftermarket resin cockpit. When the cockpit was painted and dry brushed, then a black wash applied it went in with no fuss. What you can see from the outside looks fine to me and also the resin gunsight is a big improvement over the lame kit part.

 When you glue the two fuselage halves together don’t forget the propeller shaft, part A6. After building a few of these I almost forgot to do this step on this build. When it comes to attaching props I prefer the vinyl washer approach Hasegawa takes in most of its other kits because it permits you to remove the propeller and spinner and usually it is a tight fit. The problem with this kits engineering of the attachment is you can easily glue the shaft to the fuselage and it is not a tight fit resulting in a wobbly prop that can look slightly askew.

 Steps 3 and 4 have you construct the main wing, landing gear bay and attach it to the fuselage. This is where the “snake pit” detailing decision takes place. You can go OOB or try to replicate some or all of the details appearing the long OOP Jaguar MC.202  resin detail set to improve the accuracy and intense detail of the landing gear bay with its myriad pneumatic pipes and electrical wiring connections. I am going the OOB route on this area this time and looking forward to a build with my Jaguar resin set to see how it looks. I tried to use wire and guitar wire to replicate this on some MC.205 builds recently and the caveat is you need to understand where everything goes and avoid getting in the way of kit components when you start to add wiring to detail this area before the kit parts are glued in place.

 I have read other kit build reviews of the landing gear assembly, with negative comments on the landing gear due to ejection pin marks. The mould punch out pin marks are unfortunately a by-product of Hasegawa’s approach so some clean up is required. You can add some wire for the brake lines and even try some replacement scratch building of the attachment points for the leg to gear covers for finer detail. There are replacement gear covers in etched metal and possibly in resin as well. I chose not do so on this build because the kit parts pass the 2 foot viewing test. The landing gear oleo linkages have weight reduction holes so you could think about some cosmetic drilling to improve this area as well if you are adding the brake lines.

 The Macchi 202 has several metal covers over the aileron hinges that you could use some evergreen sheet to detail (see page 55 in the Squadron MC.205 Walk Around text for details since it is similar for the MC.202). The upper wings are missing the correct shaping for the oval access panels to the armament box – they are rectangular in shape in the kit plastic. They should be re-scribed into ovals. The spent shell casing ejector opening underneath the wing is there but there should be two holes, one for the shells and one for the links if your version of the MC.202 has the .30 wing guns. Many had no guns at all in the wings so you will need to fill in this area if that’s the case.  This area is also missing the small raised teardrop shaped “speed bumps” that protected the wing from spent shell and casing ejection damage. The opening for the belt links is missing so you will need to open up a second rectangular opening for this and add its raised tear drop “speed bump” if you have wing guns which appeared in later serie versions. The teardrop shaped bumps were designed to prevent bounce back damage when the wind blows the shell back against the wing. I used an etched metal template from Eduard to add the second hole. See page 58 in the Squadron Walk Around for the MC.205 for two good color pictures of the two per-wing spent casing ejection holes and tear drop bumps for a better look at this feature.

 Part A1, the fuel dump exit or dynamic socket tube on the port side fuselage is very small and the hole it goes into very large so you may want to use metal wire to replace it because it can get overwhelmed if you use liquid glue. I have also seen this part called the “dynamic socket” on page 49 of the Squadron walk-around text which stated its purpose was to “provide pressure to all grouped air tubes”.

 Steps six and eight of the instructions have the bottom fuselage parts assembly steps. The kit has one rod, part B10 added in step eight to hold the part B10 radiator door open. It actually has three rods, one on each side and one more going horizontally across the middle. See the Squadron Walk Around # 5558 book page 45 for the details on both the front and back areas to see Hasegawa used some artistic license in their model which is not accurate in this area.

 One reviewer noted you should be careful with the main spar (C17) indicating it must be glued absolutely perpendicular to the wing or it would cause problems later. I'm glad he warned me, as the part naturally wants to lean forward slightly. He also noted in the real Macchi’s a lot of the engine plumbing/wiring was visible in the forward part of the wheel wells but little to nothing is supplied in Hasegawa's kit.

With the benefit of having completed the kits construction, I would strongly advise you to do as much gap and seam filling and sanding on sub-assemblies before final assembly. Keep an eye out for sub-assemblies that require some filler or seam filing to correct them before attachment. For example, parts A3 that goes on the air filter (part A4), and the fuselage seam where the rear center part of the wings meet the fuselage all have noticeable seams or tiny gaps that are much, much easier to fill and sand before they are committed to their attachment points on the fuselage or partially obscured by other assemblies. For example, the lower wing to fuselage join I thought would be covered up by the ventral radiator housing but it is not. It is exposed enough to be visible. I fixed this one before the radiator and its door with a support strut were attached with a Flex-I-File to clean up the seam.

This version of the MC.202 did not have wing guns but other versions did have the 7.7mm armament (diagrams for this armament are found on page 66 of the Squadron Walk Around) which comes standard with this kit.  If they are pertinent for your build I recommend replacing the plastic wing gun barrels with some stainless steel tubing because plastic moulding constraints or the approach Hasegawa took make the barrels look a bit odd.

The decals come on a small but well printed sheet with two options. I opted to use (MSAP) Ministry of Small Aircraft Production decal # 4853 for “Black 79-Red 1”because it had among its five choices an airframe for 1^st Stormo. Besides looking very nice I wanted to match it to the MC.200 and MC.205 I have with 1^st Stormo markings. I found a picture of the subject aircraft on page 9 and a similar aircraft in Libya during 1941 on page 12 of Warpaint Series No. 78 Aer Macchi C.202-205 Folgore-Veltro. This book  also had color profiles for 1^st Stormo airframes “79-6” on page 3, and “88-9” on page 11 .

  I chose the markings for the first aircraft, “Black 79 – Red 1” from the MSAP decal for a MC.202, R.A. 79^th  Squadriglia, 6^th Gruppo, 1^st Stormo C.T., in Libya in the original delivery color scheme of Nocciola Chiaro 4 (Light Hazel Tan 4 – FS30219) upper surfaces over Grigio Azzurro Chiaro 1 (Light Blue Gray 1 – FS36314) undersurfaces with the Breda factory camouflage.   Some similar color profiles of this aircraft which is probably a Serie III model were found in the MMP # 8102 Macchi MC.202 Folgore text on pages 76 and 80.

 The cockpit and wheel wells of the MC.202 were painted in light green.  The instructions indicate to use Gunze # 312 light green. It is close to the pale green Model Master 1534. The Tamiya instructions for the MC.200 indicate XF-21 Sky and XF-5 Green in a 50% each mixture for the cockpit. This mixture provides a similar color to the U.K. WWII color of interior green or cockpit green.

For the overall fuselage finish I used Tamiya acrylics because they were close enough in color and I had the paint in hand. A web search indicated Model Master II Enamels - No. 2037 Flint Gray FS36314 is the exact match for undersurfaces. The top surfaces are matched by Model Master # 1742 Enamel Dark Tan FS30219 or Gunze Mr. Color # 310 Brown. The exact colors I used were Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow with a small amount of XF-52 Flat Earth. The green was XF-13 JA Green. The undersides are painted Tamiya XF-25 Light Sea Grey (it is spelled “grey” not “gray” on the label) which is a very good blue gray tone similar to FS36314.

Weathering and Final Coat – some pastel chalk and black/brown pin wash was used. I sprayed on a Future coat used during the initial decal application and after decaling was completed I used Future using a brush to seal all of the decals. Testors Dull Cote was used during the final step to seal all of the decals and give the correct flat finish.

 The props have the correct decal stencil which is found on the kit decal sheet.

 The kit looked very nice once assembly was completed and it was ready for the paint shop. I set it aside and with a fresh pair of eyes the next morning I looked it over and felt there were a number of small gaps or incomplete joins that should get the Mr. Surfacer 500 treatment. They were small and instead of using Tamiya or Squadron putty I opted for the “500” treatment. It, putty and sanding, is difficult in places due to the very complex radial surfaces on this airframe. For example, where part A7 joins the fuselage was an easy assembly gluing effort but the moulding did not click into place. There was a noticeable (to my eye) step no matter how I tried to align it while gluing the part to the two fuselage halves. It fit well with no gap but there was a big step on one side. This prompted a closer look at all the seams and I went into clean-up mode on a model that almost looked ready due to its generally perfect fit.

This was the first Hasegawa kit that I have built which did not suffer from the non-fit of the lower wing to the fuselage. It was perfect. The wing to fuselage had no gap (it did have a seam). I just had to hold it together with a berna-clamp and apply some liquid glue. After the glue set and I removed the clamps and thought NO filler was required which is, or to me, a big shock since I always have had this concern with 1/48th scale Hasegawa kits not fitting in the lower wing to fuselage join beneath the cockpit. But, a few days later, I was concerned with the thought that maybe what looks like a panel line (the glue join) should be smooth and have no seam. Is it a seam or a panel line? Some Mr. Surfacer 500 was applied and sanded smooth.

Hasegawa supplied a clear gunsight (Part M1) which I did not use due to the True Details resin cockpit. The TD sight was OK but could have been more pronounced since it just looked like another blob rather than standing separately from the instrument panel as in the actual aircraft. I added the glass reflector part using some clear styrene sheet from Squadron.

The very last step was attaching the canopy and its connector wire that goes behind the armor plate (see page 33 photo in the Squadron Walk Around book). I used a “third hand” tool positioned below the canopy to hold it in position under the Gorilla glue which hardened hours later.

I punched out one styrene disk from an Evergreen plastics sheet to provide the intake door for the air filter intake. It is a noticeable flap on the actual aircraft.  The exhaust was finished by brushing on thinned Pactra IP96 Rust enamel.  When the Pactra was dry I used some Metalizer Dark Iron non-buffing as a wash. I was a disappointed with the kit exhausts and used some Ultracast replacements which went right in and look great.

The long thin wooden mast was used and some antenna wire connected to the tail and to the mid-fuselage glass insulator connector. This configuration was used for most of the MC.202 aircraft except for very early versions. I used some scrap etched copper fret to cut a connection tab for the antenna wire connection to the vertical tail’s front edge. I wound some thin copper wire around a thicker piece of wire to create a spring for this part. I also used two pieces of empty wire insulation as the insulators (see photo). I attached this before the final painting of the upper surfaces and canopy parts.

The main landing gear covers were painted off the model and added at this point. The small tabs (part C14) at the top did have a good fit since there was a small indentation just for them. I found other Macchi kits lacked fit in this area. There are two versions of speed fairing in front of the tail wheel, with one having a part behind so be mindful of which is appropriate for your build.

 The clear parts were added using Testors 8876C white glue. I use this because of its long, tapered black plastic applicator that allows small amounts to be carefully placed. I also used a Squadron “Fast Frames” vinyl canopy accessory # 41016 – on the inside of the kit canopy. Since it is an open canopy this is a very visible part and I needed a very clean delineation of the inside canopy frame which it provided. The now long OOP “Fast Frames” still works! They did make for an easy way to add the black framing of the cockpit canopy interior – which is not a fun task otherwise unless you use some pre-cut masks like the ones from Eduard.  I then added an etched metal gun sight and post in front of the canopy. The gun sight has no crosshair so you essentially need to find a loop on a post which I found on another etched fret.

 There is a thin holding wire used to restrain the canopy when it is opened. This is clearly visible in a photo on page 33 of the Squadron Color Walk Around text. I used some smoke colored Sulky brand invisible sewing thread which is what I also used for the antenna wire because it is already darkened (not transparent like other invisible sewing threads) for the restraining wire. It needs to be glued behind the two mounting bolts on the armor plate behind the pilot. If you keep the canopy closed you won’t need this.

 The wing tip lights were painted Testors chrome silver. When it was dry I used Tamiya clear red and green over the lights and the model was finished.

I have no hesitation in highly recommending this kit. I really enjoyed this build. Assembly of the main parts was so quick that I thought I did something wrong but everything was there. The MC.202 is a beautiful aircraft and the model builds into an accurate replica.

 The colorful camouflages and paint variations of the MC.202 include a variety of schemes that show which factory they were coming from. The text from Macchi MC 202 Folgore, Aviolibre Special #3 Maurizio Di Terlizzi; Avialibri Special # 3 on page 40 has color profiles showcasing the variations as does the Aero Detail # 15 book on page 65. The cockpit is fine OOB but you do have many enjoyable interior alternatives. There is plenty of aftermarket to upgrade the cockpit area using color zoom from Eduard, or complete resin cockpit sets from Squadron True Details, or SBS Model resin. You can just swap out the kit seat for an Ultracast seat with belts and use the Hasegawa instrument panel decals for a nice looking model.

 There are some excellent reference books listed below. The Squadron Walk Around # 5558 is entirely in color (except for B&W WWII period photos) and although for the MC.205 there are so many similarities in the airframe that it answered many modeling detail questions that I had. The MMP book also excels in this area and is just for the MC.202. Throughout the build I was re-reading the Squadron Walk Around # 5558 book finding the correct detail for comparison to kit parts or identifying missing features. It too is highly recommended and its price is very reasonable given its quality and significant contribution to a fun build. The MMP book was also very useful in the same regard.

 Macchi C.202 Folgore MMP Books Orange Series No. 8102

Warpaint Series No. 78 Aer Macchi C.202-205 Folgore-Veltro

Squadron Publications # 1041 Macchi C.202 In Action 1980  

SKYmodels decal 'Macchi MC 202', # 48-015

Macchi MC 202 Folgore, Aviolibre Special #3 Maurizio Di Terlizzi; Avialibri Special # 3; 2000

Squadron # 5558 Macchi MC 205 “Veltro” Walk Around Color Series; Maurizio Di Terlizzi,  2008

Aero Detail # 15 Macchi C.200/202/205 published 1995

Stormo! web site at  http://www.stormomagazine.com

Andy Garcia

June 2013

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