The Ar-396 was designed to be a replacement trainer for the Ar-96. The major stipulation for designing it was to reduce the amount of metal in the aircraft. Production was to take place in French factories, but the progress of the war made that impossible. Construction was therefore moved to Czech factories. While the prototype and several examples were constructed there, the war ended before they were able to be brought into service. 

Postwar, 200 examples were built in France by SIPA. These were used for training and as COIN aircraft in North Africa. The major difference between the SIPA aircraft and the standard Ar-396 were the addition of wing racks for light bombs and rockets as well as a different canopy with a flat top and three center sections vice the two used by the Ar-396.

Planet Models resin kits have always come very well packaged and this one is no exception. The clear plastic bag is divided into several sections. This allows the large, heavy parts to rattle around without damaging the smaller, more fragile bits. In this case, there are separate compartments for the large, one-piece wing, the fuselage halves, the rudder/tailplane/cockpit floor, the two vac canopies, and the several wafers, themselves individually packaged.

Detailing on the parts is quite good. There is even detail on the fuselage sidewalls. It is good to see that Planet Models is finally putting two vacuform canopies in their kits and I do hope that this is a major policy change.

There is also a decal sheet for two aircraft, one German and one Czech. According the the instructions, this Czech one represents an aircraft used during the Prague uprising of 5 May, 1945. Maybe that explains why they are so poorly printed. At least the Czech roundels are very poorly done with few straight lines and lots of color bleeding. I'd like to think that this is supposed to represent markings that were hastily brush painted on the aircraft. Maybe someone reading this can tell me.

The instruction sheet is just as brief as before, though this time there isn't even a parts breakdown diagram. One gets a brief history and part of the painting directions on one sheet, the other part of the painting diagram and the interior construction on another, the third section is an exploded view of the rest of the construction and the fourth section is a 'catalogue' of other Planet kits.

The kit itself is packaged in the now common white paperboard box.

With all resin kits, the first thing to do is to remove all the big parts from the resin blocks. This requires the use of a saw of some sort, followed by a good sanding of the places where the block meets the part. I found the kit parts to be very well designed as to minimize any excessive sanding. Probably the trickiest part was removing the 'sprue' from the wing. It goes a bit into the root and needs careful attention. There was a small amount of flash on the large parts, but really not as much as one would expect.

In fact, the detailing as a whole is really very good. There is plenty of detail on the parts themselves and the interior sidewalls have very nice rib detail. Removing the bits from the resin wafers was next. This took a bit more effort, as the edges had to be cleaned up once removed from the wafers. A few passes with an Xacto and sandpaper took care of it. I left all the really small bits on the wafer until needed.

It was while doing this cleanup that I was struck by how really nicely this kit was molded. Test fitting some of the major components showed that fit was quite good indeed. The wing/fuselage join was particularly good, with almost no gaps. Same with the fitting of the cockpit floor into the fuselage. Were it not for the material from which the kit was made, as well as the odd air bubble or two in some of the parts, I would have thought this to be a good quality injected styrene kit!

Once all the big pieces were cleaned up, it was time to start on assembly. Since there weren't any subassemblies to do, this meant the cockpit. There are ten pieces shown in the instructions that fit on the cockpit floor: two seats, two control sticks, four rudder pedals and a two-piece front instrument panel. This panel has a small tray that fits 2/3rds of the way down the face of it. I started with the foot pedals and worked to the taller bits. There are depressions for the pedals and seats. The control sticks are simply sanded flat on the bottom and glued to the small mounts on the floor. The instrument panel has a small cutout on the floor to fit over a pipe that runs fore and aft down the centerline of the floor. To make sure this fit properly, the floor was placed into a fuselage half and then the instrument panel was test fit. There is a small notch in the fuselage side to accept the side of the panel. I had to sand a small bit off the bottom of the panel where it meets the floor to keep it from being too tall.

Closing the other fuselage half with the cockpit floor in place showed that the fit is excellent. Certainly better than most limited run injected styrene kits!! I was about to paint everything in there RLM 66 dark grey, when I realized that there was a bag of small parts that I hadn't used. Looking at the parts showed that they were definitely bits that belonged in the cockpit, however there was no mention of them at all in the instructions!! A little sleuthing determined what the bits are for.

From the left, there is a block on which are the control rods that go to the engine throttles. The center block has (from the top) a forms pouch, the retainer for the prop, two trim wheels, and two oleo scissors. The last little block has (from the top), the trim wheel mounts, and three control levers.

Now locales for all but the control levers and forms pouch can pretty well be figured out as there are spots on the cockpit floor for the trim wheel mounts and the wheels and control arms fit on that. The oleos go on the landing gear. For the other items, guesswork and logical placement will have to do as drawings and diagrams for the Ar-396 interior were impossible for me to find.

Once placement was determined, the bits were glued into place. Naturally, I broke one of the throttle rods while removing it from the resin block!  Then the interior  parts were all painted RLM 66 using Aeromaster paint. Detail painting was next. The seat belts were painted a light grey with aluminum hardware. The throttle handles were painted white and the canopy latch yellow. The rest of the interior was drybrushed with medium grey and aluminum to bring out highlights. Then the interior was tack glued to the right fuselage half. Once happy with the alignment, the left side was glued in place in the back as I was concerned with proper alignment. The front half was then glued and then the interior was glued in place. Superglue and accelerator was used for all gluing. The very front has an engine face that was glued in place and then painted black. When dry the engine details were painted aluminum.

The seams were all sanded down and any gaps filled with putty. So far, everything was going very normally, unusual for me and a resin kit. The horizontal stabilizer was next. I had thought about inserting a pin or two for strength, but in the end chose not to. Getting this bit properly aligned is paramount as it has a very small mating surface and if it is misaligned, the entire aircraft won't look right. Some careful sanding enabled a good fit and once in position, it was hit with accelerator. The wings were next and they fit just beautifully. A bit of trimming was needed on the right front but it slid in place. So tight is the fit that no filler was needed on the upper wing section, though the underside had a few gaps. 

Now it was starting to look like an aeroplane. The nose piece was, so far, the worst fitting part. It appears possible to have a spinning prop as there is a retainer and short shaft that fit just fine. However the engine face doesn't allow enough room behind the nose piece so I fear that the prop will be of the non-spinning variety. Had I known beforehand that it was so tight, I would have sanded away the trouble spot on the engine insert before installing it.

There are a number of gaps between the nose piece and the fuselage that my attempts at eliminating by sanding the fuselage nose only made worse. I finally just applied a bunch of superglue, got the nose bit in position and then hit with accelerator. A liberal amount of filler was then used on the ensuing bad areas. The area was then sanded smooth. Unfortunately, there is (was) some rather fine detailing that disappeared under the filler and sanding.