**** DONE: GB-37 1/48 Bf109E-4B - Helicopters / Military a/c of BoB 1940

[Airframes]

Good info Andy.
That colour pic is, I believe, an original, as I have it in a a couple of books somewhere, published in the late 1960s or very early 1970s, long before digital colourisation was perfected. It's possible that it was hand-tinted, but very unlikely, as the colour saturation is too even for that type of work, and it's probably an original taken for publication in 'Signal' magazine or similar type of work.
From memory, one of the captions to this photo stated that the airframes were finished in a grey primer, which Is why I mentioned a light grey colour earlier, but as we know, primer was not used externally, and I agree that in this case, it was probably RLM 76, sprayed overall. It therefore makes sense that earlier types, such as the E models, would be finished overall in RLM 65 - easier and 'smoother' to spray the colour overall, rather than have a feathered edge leading to bare metal, and the relevant 'theater' colour could then be applied as required.
New replacement panels could therefore be expected to be in a similar finish.

 

[Crimea_River]

Take the Recaro seat out of your Macchi Kirby. The cowl will remain entirely RLM 65. Basis of decision:

- photographic evidence that the entire cowl was a light colour
- anecdotal/photographic evidence that fuselages were prepainted 65 prior to assembly at the factory.

While I agree that NMF would have looked cool, I prefer historical accuracy in my builds to the extent possible .

Unfortunately I can not post the supporting pic at this time.

 

[Wayne Little]

Glad you have a result Andy, can be one of those things that can bug you.....

 

[Crimea_River]

Yep. Always fun searching and even better to get a fairly solid answer.

Today, I straightened the mask line at the cowl having now decided to leave it as 65. Also did a bit of miscellaneous fixes on the splinters and have now applied a gloss coat. Pics later.

 

[Airframes]

Sounds good - looking forward to the pics.

 

[Gnomey]

Looks great so far Andy!

 

[turbo]

Take the Recaro seat out of your Macchi Kirby. The cowl will remain entirely RLM 65.

Yes, historical accuracy must trump coolness. I'm not sure the pilot is going to take the news about the Recaro seat well...

 

[Wayne Little]

Let's see mate...

 

[T Bolt]

Glad you got some solid info on the gun cover. The camo painting is looking really nice so far

 

[Vic Balshaw]

One week out of the loop and the modellers equivalent of the "Almanac" has been rewritten. Fantastic discussion and input folks and a reasonable outcome.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. I've been slacking a bit but got an hour in today.

Feedback from my colleague suggested that I wrap the underside 65 a little further around the leading edge as this seemed to be a common practice. Not so much as on von Werra's but maybe an extra third beyond the leading edge. I also accidentally put a long scratch along one of the 02 camo fields and wanted to realign one demarcation line on the starboard wing. I decided to get all this done at once and then reapply the gloss in preparation for decals.

All masked up and no place to go. The paints have been sprayed already.

Masks removed showing the revised demarcation of the 65 with the upper camo. Also see here is the realigned line between the 71 and 02 on the left side of the pic.

This is the realigned camo demarcation. The 71 was previously covering the entire wing root and intersected the flap.

The cowl fastener was rescribed into the paint, given a light sand and then repainted. It passes the close-up so will be fine in real life. It just occurred to me that the fastener, which I think is attached to the fuselage, should maybe green....Indeed when taking a closer look at the reference pic, this appears to be the case so I will need to attend to that.

Note that there's a bit of overspray in the above pi just over the wing root fairing. No big deal is this will get some exhaust staining anyway.

Below is is the square 65 patch, waiting on the swastika decal. I'm actually having second thoughts about this as a closer look at the reference pic seems to show mottles behind the swastika, so it may have been repainted. I had originally surmised that the ground crews would most likely have masked over the insignia when doing the heavy mottle overspray but maybe this was not the case. Or maybe they masked it all the way around the black edges.

Thanks for looking in once more.

 

[Wayne Little]

Good work Andy....

 

[turbo]

Looking real nice Andy

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys. Noticed something else interesting in my reference pic. The picture is taken from the rear starboard quarter and there appears to be something protruding from the right triangular cockpit quarter window. Betting money is on this being a flare tube. I've seen this on later 109's with the flare opening flush with the outer skin but not on E's and not sticking out. Below is a very sketchy detail of my reference pic showing what I mean. Note also the light gun cowl and dark fastener:

Anyone have a better pic or more info on this arrangement?

EDIT: Fond this while looking but the res is not great:

 

[Wurger]

Thta's interesting Andy. I think you are right that's the flare tube. IMHO these Jabo fighters could be fitted with the slot because of the co-operation with land units at the front.

 

[Wayne Little]

Think your guess is correct Andy...

 

[Airframes]

Yep, it's the tube for the flare pistol.
It seems that this varied, where some 'E's had the tube, some had a flush hole, and others didn't have any flare port at all.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Thank-you guys for the confirmation and especially for the photos. It's the first time that I've seen the tube protruding like that. Looks like I have another little mod to do but it should be straight forward. I'll need to make a little flare gin for the inside but I've done that before.