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KIT: |
FreMs 1/48 MB-339A |
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KIT # |
0199 |
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PRICE: |
$34.98 |
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DECALS: |
A bunch of options; see review |
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REVIEW & |
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NOTES: |
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HISTORY |
The Aermacchi MB.339 is the latest in a long line of successful Macchi aircraft, dating back to just after World War I. While mostly building fighters, including the very successful MC.202 Folgore and 205 Veltro, during World War II, postwar, the Macchi company decided to start concentrating on trainer aircraft. Their first, the G.59, was based on the airframe of the MC.202/5, though powered by a less rambunctious engine and sporting two seats. It was a mild success in the home market with a few overseas sales.
With the coming of the jet age, the AMI decided that it needed a
good, reliable jet trainer. From this was borne the MB.326, a Viper powered
aircraft with pleasant handling qualities and a very good serviceability record.
This aircraft was the main jet trainer for the AMI for nearly 30 years. When
removed from training use, it served as a hack for many different units until
finally retired in the mid 1990s. The 326 had good overseas sales, amongst the
bigger buyers of the aircraft being Australia, Brazil and South Africa. A
dedicated single seat attack version was also made and sold well.
The next generation of trainer from what was now Aermacchi is the MB.339. This aircraft first entered service in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Frankly, much of this aircraft is quite similar to the 326. The only part that is externally different is the cockpit section. It is more streamlined and is also slightly stepped to give the instructor a better view during landing and take-off. Internally is where things are different. It has updated avionics, different instruments and an uprated Viper engine. Recently, the Italian 339s shed their teardrop shaped wing tanks for ones that are more rounded. Sales abroad for the 339 were and are very good with many versions going to such places like Argentina, New Zealand, Eritrea, United Arab Emirates and other countries. As with the MB.326, a single seat, dedicated light attack version is also made.
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THE KIT |
I won't go into much about the kit itself. Andy Abshier did a
very good review of it and if you wish to know more, here is the link to it. I can
only add my initial impressions. The first thing I noticed is that all the
sprues are individually bagged. A good point. Next the decal sheet is truly
awesome in its scope and detail. The instructions and color markings are
not on paper, but on card stock. It includes small brass cannon barrels. The
detailing on the kit is very good, quite similar to the newer Airfix kits. This
means that some will consider the detailing to be a bit heavy in comparison to
the petite engravings of Hasegawa kits, but frankly, I don't consider that to be
a drawback. Sure, they are a bit too large for scale, but it doesn't take away from
the effect. A coat or two of paint will lessen the impact.
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CONSTRUCTION |
The first thing I did was to start gluing cylinders. ???? Well, that is to say, I started gluing together wing tanks, gun pods and rocket pods. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to do a current Italian one, so glued together the teardrop shaped wing tip tanks. The wings were also glued together at this time. Fit is very good, but not perfect and I used some filler on all of the assemblies, specifically the gun pods. One of the benefits of the heavy detailing is that it isn't sanded away, which is good, as the plastic is a bit softer than the norm.
Once the tanks and stuff were
done, I started on the interior bits. First the seats. The initial gluing
together of the head rest assemblies is rather tricky as there is no positive
contact point, just a thin line. Once dry, the seam was sanded out
and the rest of the seat constructed, except for a few bits, to ease painting.
Next the interiors were done. There are separate front and rear tubs (you can
see a single-seater coming from FreMs with this layout). The instrument panels
are, oddly, a three piece affair; a center section and two side panels. The
instructions have you believe that they are flat, which makes it odd that there
are three pieces. However, when you attempt to put the interior in, you will
notice that the instrument panel sticks out too far. Your choice is to trim it
off, or slightly curve the two outer panels. I chose the latter. No photo of the
cockpit could be found, so I hope this is correct. As an aside, I found it
interesting that for some assemblies, identical parts were given different part
numbers while for others they were numbered the same. Not a problem, just an
interesting idiosyncrasy.
The painting instructions for the interior are very complete. Basically the interior is grey with bits and pieces in other colors. I used Aeromaster and Model Master paints throughout construction. I really like the way FreMs goes the extra mile to give FS 595 references for all its colors rather than to refer you to a specific paint brand number. While this paint was drying, the intakes were glued onto the wings. These small bits are just a teeny bit oversized. This is good for me as it meant they could be sanded down to fit rather than having to rely on filler for a smooth finish.
After the seats were glued together, they were painted an overall dark grey. Then the seat cushions and head rest were painted flat black as per the instructions. The top of the parachute pack was painted a dark green (actually Aeromaster RAF Dark Green). The pull handle and bottom of the seat cushion were painted yellow. Then I tried to get the bottom cushion to fit. It was too wide so a bit of sanding was needed to get a snug fit. The pull handle then had black stripes painted on it with a fine tipped pen.
The exhaust pipe and aft
engine were painted Burnt Iron and then glued together. At this time the speed
brake well was glued together and then glued into the fuselage. Same with
the nose gear bay and the now dry exhaust. A large weight was placed above the
nose gear well and the interiors were glued in. Here is where I ran into my
first construction problem. First off all, the aft cockpit needed a bit of
trimming to clear the back attachment of the front cockpit. Nice that the
plastic is soft as it makes trimming easy.
Once that was trimmed away, I tried to glue the fuselage halves together. No go. Something was in the way. That something was the instrument panels. They are just too wide and don't fit the contours of the cockpit at all well. I ended up removing the cockpits and instrument panels, trimming on the panels, fitting them back in and then regluing in the cockpits. Not exactly the neatest evolution. Not sure why the instrument panels fit so poorly, but thinking back on it, it is quite possible that the instructions are mismarked and the front ones fit in the rear and vice versa. Something to think about. Anyway, I did get the fuselage halves glued together, but I had to clamp them and still had some gaps on the bottom near the nose that needed filled. There were also some sink marks in the exhaust section that I missed and those were also filled and sanded smooth, though it would have been much easier to have done it before gluing the fuselage halves together.
After taking care of the fuselage, the wings were glued on. No real fit problems here at all. The forward section of the speed brake was glued in place at this time as well. Then it was on to the back of the plane. The tailplanes were glued on as were the underfuselage stabilizing fins. A bit of a gap on these was filled with Mr. Surfacer 500. Then the wheel wells and speed brake well were filled with tissue and it was off for the first round of painting.
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A BIT OF PAINT |
I chose to do the Argentine version mainly because I wanted to use the gun pods and because I already had an MB.326 in that scheme. This scheme has a white underside color. I used Colors by Boyd white primer for this because it is flat and because it covers very well. The entire underside of the aircraft was painted in this color as were the undersides of the tip tanks, wing tanks and gun pods.
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CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES |
Then it was back to the workroom to add a few more bits before getting down to some serious painting. At this time, a scoop that I had missed was glued to the bottom as were the ILS receiver antennas on the tail. During this time the two HUDs were constructed. Each is four very small pieces. They also do not look exactly like what is in the instructions, so I can only hope they are correct. Since the bottom was painted, I took out the tissue from the various wells and touched up any overspray with a brush.
The next step was to get the canopy sections installed and masked. While cutting them off their sprues, I noticed an odd odor about them. Couldn't quite place it until I realized that it was plexiglas! First time I have run across this for clear bits. Anyway, the blast screen was glued into the canopy and the windscreen was glued in place using non-fogging superglue. Then the canopy was tacked in place with white glue and they were both masked with Tamiya masking tape. The white underside was then masked off with Tamiya tape and it was back to the paint shop
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WOT? MORE PAINTING? |
This aircraft is painted in colors that are not available readily mixed in
the bottles. They are close to WWII RAF colors of brown and green, so I used
those as starting places. I lightened the brown with white and added a touch to
the green as well. First color painted was the brown (now a tan). Once dry, the
tan was masked and then painted green. The drop tanks are also green and
white, while the rocket pods are overall green. The gun pods are white on the
bottom and green and tan on the upper forward sections.
Despite my efforts at masking, there was the usual overspray that had to be dealt with. The anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen was painted black. These few sentences covering the painting of this kit actually took about 10 days, what with the need to let paint dry before masking and all the touchup needed. F-16s are MUCH easier to paint than these segmented camouflage schemes on modern jets!
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DECALS & MORE |
After taking care of the overspray, it was time to add on the gloss coat. I used Future acrylic clear and gave it several coats. When dry, the decals were applied. These are without a doubt amongst the finest decals I have ever used. They are beautifully done, and have razor sharp registration. I used the Microscale system with them and they snuggled down quite well. I guess I didn't gloss a few areas enough as I had some silvering. Perhaps a stronger setting solution would have helped. Though I really haven't mentioned it before, I decided to do the Argentine version as it was the only one of the schemes that actually has seen any combat.
Once the decals had dried, it was overcoated with a semi-gloss to seal the decals. I left the jet pretty well unweathered as not all aircraft look scroungy! Then it was time to start putting on an amazing amount of stuff. First were the flaps. These are designed to just slide in the back of the wings. The mounts are scored so you can bend the flaps into the lowered position. This makes the attachment point a bit weak and I managed to break off one of the flaps during handling later on. I suggest securely gluing them in whatever position you choose.
Next the gear doors were glued in place. Then the speed brake and piston were
installed. The wing pylons were just press fit into place as they hold quite
well. Same with the gun pods. These pods have brass gun barrels. They are a bit
odd looking and I'm not sure how accurate they are, but there they are. These
were painted gunmetal after installation. I had to
drill out the mounting hole in the pod a bit for the barrels to fit securely.
They also are just press fit into place. For the other pylons, the fuel tanks
and rocket pods also, you guessed it, press fit into place. Now this puppy was
loaded for bear!
Moving to the front of the aircraft, the clear bits were unmasked and the canopy was prepared for the open position. There is a serrated thingie that fits on the right canopy sill for the canopy to glue onto. I'm guessing it is supposed to be the hinge. There is a strengthening bar with a shock on it that one glued to the canopy just under the blast shield. Before attaching this, the engine intake lips were painted flat black using a brush and steady hand. The exhaust area was also painted using Burnt Iron Metallizer.
Then the seats were glued into the cockpit and the canopy then glued to the outside of the hinge with the opening piston base glued to the hole in the center divider. The final bits were the pitot/static sensors to the top of the front fuselage and then the small clear bits like the landing light, tail beacon, taxi light and the four teardrop shaped anti-collision lights. These are very small and may be tough to glue into place. I painted the two larger ones and one small one red with the other small one being done in green before gluing in place.
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CONCLUSIONS |
Looking back on the experience, I can say without equivocation that I really liked this kit. Some of my enthusiasm may be due to the subject as it certainly isn't a 'shake and bake' model. You do have to do some thinking when constructing it and the instructions are not as crystal clear as I would have liked on a few minor things, however, when one considers that this is FreMs first kit, I can't be anything but very pleased with it. It builds into a cool model, the parts fit well, and the decal sheet is absolutely superb. I almost wish that I had seven or so more kits so that I could do each of the schemes offered!
I can highly recommend this kit to modelers with some experience and look forward with great anticipation to their upcoming F-104S Starfighter! Look for a preview and review here in Modeling Madness.
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REFERENCES |
Scale Aircraft Modeller International, 1999
Review copy courtesy of the fine folks at Pacific Models, Inc.
May 2000
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