John Symmons Posted May 22, 2019 Share Posted May 22, 2019 /media/tinymce_upload/3e9c11c63bc4d616aa556f5d85d7bf3b.jpg Another stash reducing quick build. Before I built the King George V battle ship I was going through some of my older kits and found some old Heller kits of 1930’s aircraft, some of which had been started but never completed. Great I thought maybe I can reduce the stash a bit. Also amongst the old half done kits was this old Airfix kit that I’d started years back, but never got around to painting it, so I decided to settle on the G50 . The kit had been sealed up years ago and so was still complete, with all the small parts sealed in a separate bag. The decals were very yellow and so spent several weeks in the South African autumn sun together with some also yellowed Heller decals. The assembled wings were added to the partially completed fuselage together with the tail-plane. The cowling and engine had been done years ago so all I added was the exhausts, but I kept the cowling separate to ease the painting. The painting was all hand painted, (Just too much PT to break the air-brush out.) and I used Vallejo paints to the rough equivalents of the Airfix paint numbers given. After checking though my meagre Italian reference material I think I settled on dark earth and olive green for the top and blue grey pale for the undersides. When painted it looked about right. The cowling was painted with Tamiya yellow, and the white fuselage band masked and brush painted, (I don’t trust those old Airfix fuselage band decals, they always gave me grief.) Then I lost the little bag of parts that included the under carriage, propeller and cockpit canopy. I searched high & low but they’d vanished, I came to the conclusion that they’d fallen into the waste basket and I’d binned them. So the Fiat was put to one side while I decided what to do with it, and that was when I decided to complete the KG V ship. Fast forward a week or so and the KG V was completed and I was tiding up the modelling space and putting things back in a cupboard and there whoa-&-behold was my missing Fiat parts. I could now finish the Fiat G 50. First job was to add the sun baked decals. The first one I tried just fell to pieces it was one of the national insignias for under the wing. The remaining decals were then liberally coated with liquid decal film which now made them usable. As can be seen from the photos the white isn’t very opaque as they were very thin and started to curl up when drying, the addition of a strong setting solution helped but didn’t really cure the problem, but I can live with that. The under wing insignias were replaced by two old ones from a Re 2001 model of now unknown origin, possibly Frog or Italeri. As an aside when I’d finished the KG V there was a mysterious part left rattling around; definitely not from the KG V it was way to big, it was the missing part from my Airfix E-boat from January last year. How it ended up in the KG V box I’ve no idea, it’s now in the spares box, maybe come in useful some time. Finally as the open cockpit is totally devoid of any detail except a seat I added a pilot, the Airfix one couldn’t fit through the fuselage opening so a trimmer one from an old Lindberg kit was used, I take it he was from a Lindberg kit as he was moulded in a dark green plastic. That’s about it for the Fiat, one thing I did learn was that in checking my limited references of Italian aircraft was that the early radial engine aircraft all seemed to have unpainted propellers, left in their natural steel colour, it seems as the black painted ones only came into use when the inline engines were used. I haven’t done any weathering, not even added exhaust streaks, I haven’t even touched up any of the paint, even the tail-wheel leg isn’t painted but for now I can live with that. Below is some photos of the for-now finish model, she’s really typical of those early Airfix models that we’ve loved in the past and the fit was surprising quite good, only the undercarriage doors needed trimming down by half a milli-metre. But for today’s standards she really needs some improving maybe a re-tooling, but in all honesty I can’t Airfix doing that maybe they’ll leave that one for Italeri. Enjoy the photos and as usual all comments welcome. /media/tinymce_upload/8ab3ed7415067fffc0a0cb86109f12de.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/9822d6deccad44dc5367549a0f0c2068.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/079eeb3d03e95bb5cff5ffbdb06214bd.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/0b7b52026bf5a47bc08b46d22ce8510f.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/dde549969395c408ed90469a02ca6097.jpg Remember we do this for fun John the Pom P.S. I see I’ve now got over 1000 postings. Wow time goes quick when you’re having fun. JtP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dominic Thomas Posted May 28, 2019 Share Posted May 28, 2019 A nice model of an aircraft design that clinged to the bygone era of the biplane by retaining the open cockpit. Well done, and thanks for posting one of the classics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenneth ONeill Posted May 28, 2019 Share Posted May 28, 2019 Nice.Ref the pilot, some of the xobhctaM pilots looked "rather slimmer" than their Airfix equivalents too, and might have been green. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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