AZ Model Bf 109 V-13/14 in 72nd

My second completion of 2025  - a straight forward build of the Emil prototypes from the AZ kit as flown by Udet at Dubendorf during 1937. A little disappointing that AZ do not provide a 'new' cowl piece aside from the large intake - the modeller has to do all the work here, filling, sanding and filing those gun troughs into a nice smooth part. Some additional cooling slots need to be drilled too, especially the one aft of the intake on the port side. The only other issue is the poor fit of the canopy which needs some work to achieve a neat fit. On the plus side the decals worked flawlessly. I used BMW red from a can for the finish..who knows if it is the 'right' shade - at least its not blue as is sometimes suggested. 

 Photo of the V-14 scanned from the Van Ishoven archive. Click to view full screen.

AZ Model 1:72 Martin-Baker MB 5 - greatest prop fighter and worst-ever 72nd kit !

 

" .. The M.B.5 came online at the beginning of the jet era, and never had a chance to prove its worth. With a P-51 sleekness and contra-rotating props, it would have been a frightful opponent for the Luftwaffe. Test-flown just two months before the Gloster Meteor jets went into R.A.F. service, the Martin-Baker M.B.5 promised much, but Whittle's invention took away its glory..."

Some six years after AZ's kit of the MB 5 first appeared I thought I'd build it, inspired by the neat article on Martin-Baker aircraft in the latest issue of Aerojournal magazine (issue no. 91). Aside from this there is good reference info in Air International, Vol. 16/2 (February 1979) and 'Wings of Fame', Vol. 9, 1997 which covers the whole MB fighter range and has some useful shots.

On with the build! Aside from the rear cockpit bulkhead, the interior parts were an OK fit. The instrument panel features nice raised detail that would benefit from careful painting and dry brushing to lift out the detail. Then the fun began! The fuselage halves were of different sizes. I lined up the upper surfaces and was left with a depression ahead of the radiator on the lower surface. The nose intake is 'solid' so was drilled open. 

The poor fit extended to the butt-joined wing halves. I drilled and pinned them to the fuselage but just couldn't achieve a decent fit. In the end I broke them off and stuck them together with Gorilla glue and filled the gaps. After a mammoth filing and sanding session I achieved a (sort of) reasonable result. Obviously I obliterated all the nice surface detailing and had to re-scribe - not my favourite job!

 Another tricky area is the ventral oil cooler intake. It is made up of 3 parts; a top half, a bottom half, and a cruciform grid that fits between them. The instructions are pretty hopeless here. Instead of assembling separate to the fuselage, I assembled the parts individually in-situ, and this worked well. Some clean up required, but not that much..

To get the gear legs on at what looks like a plausible angle is a trial. Rather than take a bit out of the front edge of the main landing gear bays - having already painted the undersurfaces -  I ended up re-drilling a location hole for them a little further back in the bay. The model simply doesn't look right in this area and certainly won't if built as per the instructions. The prop blades/spinner feature a mountain of flash and I didn't enjoy the clean-up job as the plastic that AZ use is so hard. 

Needless to say the rather thick bubble canopy didn't fit at all. I cut it into two parts so I wasn't left with massive gaps but its impossible to fit it 'properly' as it is too wide for the fuselage! Nor did the decals work - I lost one of the codes as it rolled up on itself and then 'shattered' into tiny pieces. Irretrieveably. 

 
The kit is 'short-run limited technology' - and pretty poor! It goes together like the 1958 vintage Airfix DH 88 Comet (see elsewhere on this blog)  ie with great difficulty!  To sum up the kit gets a poor 2 out 10 from me and is easily a contender in the 'worst scale model kit ever' Top 10, a subject we dealt with in a previous blog post (see link below). I certainly wouldn't build another. Short run shouldn't mean unbuildable and inaccurate- it certainly doesn't with other kit producers (RS Models for example). Okay, I managed to finish it - always a positive point - but really, I'm not sure why I bothered. Even now I still think the overall shape is 'wrong'. 

Also on this blog;

1958 vintage kit - the Airfix DH 88 Comet

Worst scale model kits Top 10

RS Models Me 309 

AZ Bf 109 G-6 'White 15' of 1./JG 300 - wilde Sau Limited Edition

 

Recently finished another 72nd AZ Gustav in the markings of 'White 15' of 1./JG 300 flown by Otto Leisner out of Bonn Hangelar during the summer of 1944 in the 'defence of the Reich'.

AZ Bf 109 G-6/AS in 1:72 scale

Bf 109 G-6/AS from the AZ 72nd series of Bf 109s - seen here awaiting some final touches, like the pitot tube and the FuG 16 aerial. One reason for taking photos of your models - you immediately realize what you’ve missed! Decals are remnants from various sheets, except for the ‘Mickey Maus ’ from the old Encore models Gustav.


As a far better modeler than me put it recently, " I keep going back to the AZ Bf 109s ...and then reality hits home.." Now - based on just one build so far - I decided that I quite like AZ Model's Bf 109 G-6 series - 'Model of the Year 2015' in the small scale category in the German 'Modellfan' magazine. I've just added a couple of G-6/AS variants to the stash and bought both the 'Limited Edition' JG 300 boxes.

The G-6/AS were conceived as ‘fast’ high altitude interceptors with a refined ‘bulge-free’ cowling and forward fuselage, the DB 605A(S) engine (‘S’ for Sonder or ‘special’) and a bigger supercharger, issued in overall light blue-gray finish from early 1944 to units operating in the defense of the Reich, such as I./JG 5. This is the ’Mickey Maus’ machine flown by the Kommandeur, Horst Carganico...

I'd forgotten how tricky these AZ kits are - not much fits well unfortunately. Especially where the cockpit is concerned - a huge chunk of that need sanding down to get it between the fuselage halves.

To build a G-6/AS as depicted in this box the chin bulges will need to be sanded off - AZ don't tell you this anywhere.

I’ve just started another of these and somehow the fit of the cockpit is much better ! The other problem area is the fit of the empennage which seems too thick for the lower half of the fuselage, which could usefully use a ‘shim’ of plastic card to widen it out. And many modelers have complained about the nose shape on these kits but to be honest it doesn’t bother me too much at all...

AZ Model Martin Baker MB 5 in 72nd scale in-box first look build review

The Martin Baker M.B. 5 or "V" otherwise known as the MB F.18/39 has been described by some as possibly the pinnacle of UK piston-engine fighter design during WWII. Resembling a 'P-51 on steroids' it was a quite large aircraft, much bigger than a Mustang (37 feet long vs 32 feet) and somewhat longer than a Thunderbolt (36 feet long). It had shorter wings than a P-51. Despite its outward apparent similarity to the Mustang it adopted some of the aerodynamic elements used on that aircraft, but was entirely its own machine. It could easily have been a world-beating fighter. But the fact that it was a piston engine fighter in late 1944 was largely its undoing. A one-off late-war prototype, it was swept away by the new jet fighters, being test flown just as the Meteor was entering service.  James Martin and 'Val' Baker developed five aeroplanes between 1929 and 1944 before specialising in the ejection seat technology for which they are still renowned today. This followed the crash of the M.B. 3 in which pilot 'Val' Baker was killed. The M.B. 5 was developed from the M.B.3, which in turn had been built in response to Air Ministry Spec F.18/39. The aircraft was powered by an enormous Rolls-Royce Griffon 83 V-12 engine developing some 2,340 h.p and had a maximum speed well in excess of 400 m.p.h. The Griffon though was not the most reliable of engines and the story goes that the Griffon engine failed during a demo in front of Sir Winston Churchill which didn't do much for its chances. But this was 1945 and with the end of the war in sight, the writing was most definitely on the wall for all new piston-engine fighters. Ultimately though of course piston engine fighters and other types were still in service for the next war - Korea.

According to the box blurb this is a "Limited run technology" kit.  After a first look at the parts and some dry-run fitting based on a build thread over on BM a few specific points to note ;

1/ the undercarriage bay surrounds seem to be a poor fit. I think the part numbers in the instructions may be incorrect, so make sure you check before applying glue.

2/ Check the rear cockpit bulkhead is square when seated - the modeller is supposed to put the rear bulkhead behind the cockpit floor, not on top of it. If you do that it all seems to fit fine ..

3/  Some comments suggest that the slot for the starboard tailplane had to be raised a bit to match the port, but on my model there seems to be no problem here. Note there are two sets of tailplanes (small and large) and two sets of fin/rudder including the early M.B. 3 -style 'triangular' fin/rudder.

4/ The fuselage halves fit pretty well and, apart from the rear cockpit bulkhead, so do the interior part. The  instrument panel looks neat with some nice raised detail, see the photo of the actual cockpit below. The starboard console seems to have been molded the wrong way round, but otherwise looks pretty neat. It should be possible to replicate the array of dials on this console with some slithers of sliced clear sprue.

5/ The intake below the spinner is very poor, not sure what to do about this. The wing halves are butt-joined as is the wing to fuselage join.

6/ The single piece canopy is rather thick and may not fit very well. The solution here would appear to be to cut it open..

new AZ Bf 109 G-6 Gustav in 1:72nd scale, 9./ JG 3 ace Ofw. Alfred Surau, September 1943

With a heat-wave on the way and a fortnight off looming, it is time to get out in the garden again....and get some modelling done.

I have just finished my first one of a series of the new AZ Bf 109 G-6 Gustavs in 1:72nd scale. Of course this is not the Fine Molds kit and, as a number of modellers have pointed out, the AZ kit looks a little weedy around the front end.  I can easily live with it though. Besides, the FM kit has its own problems - just look at that pathetic FM radiator for example. And if you can look past the outline shape  then the level of detail on the AZ kit, the good fit, the slew of spare and optional parts in the box which enable a host of variants to be built, along with the very much lower price.. all of these things make the AZ Model 109 a very attractive kit indeed. In fact I have just ordered my first AZ G-6 Joypack ..that's three AZ G-6s for less than a Fine Molds 109.

My first one finished in the markings of 9./ JG 3 ace Ofw. Alfred Surau, September 1943...this is from the "limited edition" JG 3 Udet boxing. Unfortunately there is no spinner spiral on the decal sheet and it would have been impossible to mask and paint. In the end I cut out some thin curved strips of black decal and applied..reasonably happy with the result. Now it just needs a port wing pitot from fuse wire and I'm calling this finished...

having posted this subsequently on britmodeller I was very very pleased with the nice comments this one garnered....thanks chaps!

Tom Neil's silver Spitfire - AZ Spitfire IX in 1:72nd scale; Polish wings 15 - Spitfire IX 1944-46

AZ Spitfire IX in 1:72nd with home-made decals in the colours of Wing Commander Marian Duryasz and cut-out Pavla vac-form canopy.

" During the build up to the Allied invasion of Northern Europe, Battle of Britain hero Tom 'Ginger' Neil was assigned as an RAF liaison officer to an American fighter squadron. Acting as a British representative, Neil was tasked with negotiating and overcoming the countless culture clashes that existed between the two Allies and Neil's time with the Americans was anything but dull. As the Allies pushed east, Neil commandeered an abandoned Spitfire as his own personal aeroplane. Erasing any evidence of its provenance and stripping it down to bare metal, it became the RAF's only silver Spitfire. Love affair and culture clashes on hold, he took the silver Spitfire into battle alongside his US comrades until - with the war's end - he was forced to make a difficult decision. Faced with too many questions about the mysterious rogue fighter, he contemplated increasingly desperate measures to offload it, including bailing out mid-Channel. He eventually left the Spitfire at Worthy Down, never to be seen again " 

Only of course it was. D@MB was Tom Neil's silver Spitfire as it appeared after being taken over by Wing Commander Marian Duryasz, Polish liaison officer with 2nd TAF HQ in early 1945- the 'MB' standing for 'Marian' and his wife 'Barbara' . A 322 (Dutch) Squadron machine coded MK 520 this particular Spitfire had originally worn the codes 3W-K. Neil had commandeered the aircraft after it had been 'abandoned' on his airfield in Normandy. He eventually had the paint stripped back to the metal and flew it for a year before disposing of it. According to Tom Neil it did not display a serial number although I have added 'MK 520' to the lower wing surfaces. Now I kinda like silver Spitfires and I like to build Polish 'RAF' subjects in tribute to the Polish squadrons that eventually flew under the auspices of the RAF during the later war years. Terry "Airframes" Fox was kind enough to produce some decals to enable me to model Tom Neil's 'silver' Spitfire IX so I thought I'd break open an AZ "Joypack" straight away (three sets of sprues, no decals) and crack on with a silver Spitfire or two.  D@MB features in the excellent "Polish Wings" (15) volume by Wojtek Matusiak devoted to the Spitfire IX.

I had initially intended to build the AZ Spitfire IX alongside the new-tool Airfix Spitfire IX  - using the detail-less Airfix kit as a test-bed for some Pavla resin parts. Above; AZ Spit IX in 1:72 scale and, below, making a start on an Airfix IX with Pavla resin cockpit. Below this, the AZ and Airfix fuselage halves for a comparison shot and fitting the Paval resin cockpit into the Airfix IX fuselage halves..

.
Below; the AZ cockpit completed from the box with some etch belts (Valiant wings Hurricane I etch sheet ) and the main airframe components assembled. I could have done without having to perform the surgery on the wings which are squared-off out of the box but still need cutting 'square' along the panel line before fitting the wingtips. The parts are all numbered on the AZ instruction sheet, although there are no parts numbered on the sprues - which makes assembly a little tricky. Ditto for the lack of locating lugs, the tailplanes just butt up to the fuselage so I've drilled and inserted a fuse wire 'spar' 

AZ Spitfire after primer and aluminium coats

Reached the end of this tricky little build over Christmas - here the Pavla vac-form canopy has been cut out and partially installed with rear-view mirror attached. The canopy framing has some sort of primer finish. Home-made decals applied with Wing Commander pennants from the spares box. Note the non-standard wing roundels and non-standard stub replacing the cannon barrel in the wing leading edges.