1/48 Bf109E Galland

[bdefen]

Read Galland's auto-bio, and got this kit on ebay. Older kit, copyright showed as 1988. Decal sheet yellowing indicated it might be that old, but sprues were all still in plastic wrap.

Used this thread Galland's Bf 109E-4 1/32 scale as an initial guideline.

I followed the painting instructions that accompanied the kit. You "authenticists" out there will surely find inaccuracies in my work, but with my skill level, and now three years since my return to this hobby, I'm generally pleased with the results. Some of the smaller decals for handholds, and filler ports didn't get quite over their respective panel lines. When I tried to slide them into a final, correct spot, they were stuck in place. So there they stayed. Werk number decal is "5019".

A Midway-battle SBD Dauntless is next.

 

[bdefen]

Oh, and over the gasoline filler port, the triangular sign reads "c3" instead of "87".
What is "c3'? I assume the "87" meant 87 octane fuel.

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work!

 

[Wurger]

Oh, and over the gasoline filler port, the triangular sign reads "c3" instead of "87".
What is "c3'? I assume the "87" meant 87 octane fuel.

The "87" was the 87 octane petrol from natural crude oil. B4 was the 87 octane synthetic benzin from coal oil and the C3 or C3/100 was the synthetic fuel, actually of 96 octane that was the equivalent of the "100" - 100 octane natural petrol, as memo serves.

Here two enlarged shots from two images with Galland's Bf 109E-4 in. The "c3" in the yellow triangle can be noticed. It means that the Bf 109E-4 was powered by the DB601N engine that required the 100 octane fuel. So it was Bf 109E-4/N

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff.
One small observation - there wasn't a central, vertical frame on the canopy. This was a two-part window, the front half of which could be slid back to open it.

 

[Wurger]

I agree .. that can be seen in the pics ...

 

[bdefen]

Good stuff.
One small observation - there wasn't a central, vertical frame on the canopy. This was a two-part window, the front half of which could be slid back to open it.

Yep, I caught that later. See photo. Would have saved me some masking time, too. Thanks!

 

[bdefen]

Also interesting to me was the 109's relatively "petite" size relative to other single-engined WW2 aircraft. All pictured are 1/48 scale.

 

[Lucky13]

Very nice!