**** DONE: GB-39 1:48 CR. 42 Falco - Battle for France to Battle of Britain

[Crimea_River]

Username: Crimea River
First name: Andy
Category: Judge – Non competing
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Italeri
Model Type: CR. 42 Falco Aces Edition No. 2702
Aftermarket addons: None planned

Having seen all the interesting subjects being entered by our members, I thought I would jump in with this kit. In the discussions about GB 39, I suggested that the scope of the GB could perhaps include Dutch and Belgian subjects as the invasion of these countries and the resulting battles, however brief, were very much part of the plan for the ultimate encirclement of the French Army and the BEF leading to the defeat of France. I therefore offer up this CR.42 of the Belgian Air Force, the below pic being taken by me from the box art:

According to the description provided in the kit, this aircraft was the mount of 1st Sgt. Marcel Michotte when, in May of 1940, he participated in an aerial battle in the Fleurs area whilst covering the retreat of the French 7th Army. In that engagement, he managed to damage a Bf109E but 5 other CR. 42s were shot down.

As always, I like to research my subjects as much as possible and have so far been unsuccessful in finding pics of this particular aircraft on the net. As this will also be my first Italian subject, I will have lots of questions on colours and will appreciate all your help in making this build as realistic as possible.

My start on this build will be a slow one, given that I'm still occupied with a bathroom reno and will be off on a kayak trip on Vancouver Island in early September. However, given the end date I'm fairly confident that I will be able to get this one done for the end of November.

Thanks for looking in. Any info you can offer on this scheme would be welcome!

 

[Wurger]

Here is a couple of examples of the CR.42 used by the Belgian AF in 1940.

And here is your White 30. The Fiat CR.42 R-30 of 4/II/2Aé overturned upon landing at Brustem airbase in the early morning of 10 May 1940.
The aircraft could not be repaired in time to see further action.

More pics of kites of the BAF IIFG3FS including the one of the overturned White 30 with some info you can find at: Fiat CR.42

the pic source: the Internet.

 

[fubar57]

Very cool Andy. I'll send you stuff when I get home. Do you have Dropbox? If not I can send in a few emails

 

[Crimea_River]

Wojtek thanks. I did see all those pics in my search but the overturned 30 was from Asbiz which gave me an error when I tried to go to the site to get more details so I wasn't sure it was mine. Need to verify that the camo was both brown and green mottled rather than just green.

Geo yes in have a drop box account. The only thing I have on the CR 42 is the Profile Publication No. 16 which I've not yet read.

 

[N4521U]

This should be a good one.

 

[Migrant]

Cool subject, looking forward to seeing it develop.

 

[parsifal]

,nice that you are building again Andy.

I will be interested to find out if the belgian 3 part mottle scheme is the same as the RA at this time.

I do know that the RA settled on this 3 part scheme prewar, but this was simplified to a virtual 2 part scheme after June 1940. the revised scheme was not immediately changed. It was done gradually. Some a/c retained the complex scheme well into 1942.

The Belgians I don't know much about, but one could surmise that the Belgian scheme was the same as the RAS.

The Italian mottle scheme looks totally random, but in fact there were percentages applied for each colour element. I no longer have those percentages, but will try and find them

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Mike and Michael!

 

[Airframes]

Nice one Andy - an interesting an 'out of the ordinary' subject.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Terry. This GB has plenty of opportunities for out of ordinary entries so wanted to do something a little different.

 

[fubar57]

PM sent Andy

 

[Wayne Little]

Nice Choice Andy.

 

[N4521U]

Are you going to submit it upside down?????
And it has Strings!!!!!! Arrrrgh

 

[Crimea_River]

Should look right side up for you Bill.

I've read some reviews on this kit and shook out the parts. There is consensus that the engine, though nicely detailed, has all the push rods moulded too short, the wing ribbing detail is too pronounced, the cockpit detailing is wrong or lacking (I've gone ahead and ordered the Eduard detail set for this) and that the fit of the Warren truss type struts will involve a lot of hair pulling.

So looking forward to future joys with this one.

EDIT: With the scope of GB 39 likely including the BoB, I'm looking at the possibility of changing this scheme to one of the Italian squadrons that participated though I don't have decals for this.

 

[fubar57]

I'm all for including BoB....bring it on. Might get one myself, did some digging around and there is a lot less rigging than I expected for a biplane and there's some snazzy looking schemes out there.

 

[Airframes]

Note that the Italian units did not operate over England until November 1940, after the 'official' end of the BoB.

 

[Crimea_River]

Ok then. Back to Belgium then.

 

[le_steph40]

Excellent choice Andy... I really enjoyed building this model
I hope the same for you

 

[Crimea_River]

Thank-you Steph. I'll look for the thread.

 

[Crimea_River]

I read with interest Stephane's thread on his beautiful CR 42 build late last year and took particular note of the discussion regarding the 2 colour vs 3 colour scheme carried by aircraft 13-95 of the RA. This led me to question whether the 3 colour scheme presented in the Italeri box art at the start of my thread is correct for my Belgian rig.

Though I've not fully read through Geo's material yet (it appears info on the Belgian Falcos is fairly limited anyway), I found this site which, though brief, carries some good info on these aircraft as well as pics on many of those delivered to the Belgian force. All of the aircraft on this site appear to me to have small spots of tightly spaced mottle on them, leading me to believe that the 3 colour scheme appears correct. I assume that the bottoms are grey as opposed to the silver dope depicted on Stephane's model.

I also found here that R-30 was indeed flown by Michotte but that this is the aircraft that he nosed over on landing at Brustem on May 10, 1940. R-30 was damaged beyond repair in this accident. In the aerial battle noted in my first post, Michotte was flying R-23 shown here:

If anyone has definitive info on the camo schemes on these aircraft, please let me know.