Breda was originally a train manufacturer... whether this was a factor in the troubled history of this aircraft, one can only guess! As one of the earlier monoplane designs, the high wing loading of the Isotta-Fraschini K14 (under) powered two seat Breda Ba65 made it a real handful for the inexperienced pilots, who had insufficient training or knowledge of such characteristics and this contributed to a spate of accidents during its introduction into the Regia Aeronautica.

Take-off or landing was a fraught time and the engine had to remain on full power just to keep the aircraft in the air! Aerobatics were practically impossible and only expert pilots could get the best out of the plane. Its relatively high-speed led the Air Ministry to believe it could be used as an interceptor as well as ground attack. Ultimately, it was to be a single seat ground attack only, when weight saving measures demanded the removal of the rear-gunner from all aircraft. This applied to the Breda Ba65A80 as well, despite being fitted with the more powerful Fiat A80 engine.

New bomb bay doors were made from shaped plasticard and the glazing made from clear sheet (the vac form item was much too small). These opened up areas made access to the cockpit quite easy, so I set about installing all the detail, leaving out the resin floor. It never had a floor as such, just two footplates, which meant adding some missing tubular structure. As there were no bombs supplied for the internal bomb bay, which was situated right behind the pilot seat, I decided to fabricate an additional petrol tank that was often installed in their place. This filled the vacant area quite nicely and also stopped any "show-through" from the large "drop" holes in the bomb bay doors. Any tubular structure that might still be visible through those doors and ventral glazing were added using sections of plastic rod. I chose to depict all internal areas in light grey, instead of the "anti-corrosivo" green often quoted in build articles, as no one seems to know for sure what colours were actually used. I picked out various items in black and silver.

Compared to that, which was easily the most difficult fuselage construction I've ever dealt with, the rest of the kit construction is pretty straightforward. A few tweaks were still necessary though. The shape of the elevators and outline of each wing were matched to the plans, including an extension to the port wingtip (to counter engine torque). Some filler was needed to achieve a smooth join between the wings and fuselage and minor tweaks made to the shape of the trailing edge of the wing fillets, which were too sharp. New undercarriage doors were made from plasticard to replace the very thick kit items (the propeller blades needed to be thinned down quite a lot too). Minor adjustments were made to the shape of the cannon's wing fairings and the "shields" either side of the cockpit were removed and replaced with more accurate plasticard versions. The small intakes on the top of the cowlings were also modified as they lacked sufficient depth.

The vac form canopy needed careful handling (as there's only one supplied) and despite my misgivings about the heavy handed framework, it looked perfect once installed, masked and painted... phew! 

Another problem that was not apparent until I applied a coat of grey primer was the presence of hundreds of tiny holes on the surface of both wings and tail surfaces that could not be seen with the naked eye. They were magnified a thousandfold after the first coat! Repeated sanding and application of more primer eventually obscured most of them. I used Humbrol 81 for the main upper camouflage colour and Humbrol 140 for the lower surfaces. The mottles were sprayed using Humbrol 149.  The kit decals worked surprisingly well on Future, but there is an error in the spelling of the pilots name on the fuselage, which should read as "Antonio dell'Oro", not "Antoio dell'ara". I used aftermarket wing roundels, as I wasn't happy with the shape of the fasces.