I received a couple of my aftermarket requisitions and will report on them as promised. First is are some Revi 16B gun sights from QuickBoost. At 1/32 scale and in a prominent location within the cockpit, I thought it would be a worthwhile upgrade from the kit gunsight which is molded wholly in clear plastic. They come with premarked acetate for the sight glass and three to a set so a fairly economical upgrade.
The next two upgrades are from Alley Cat Models. One can consider the Bf109G-10 being an upgrade program rather than a standalone new model. The G-10 was Luftwaffe's attempt at upgrading existing 109G models to K-4 levels. So G-10's were often a hodgepodge of old and new features. Revell chose to include only the newer style upper wing bulges on its G-10 release even though there were many G-10's that retained the older, smaller wing bulges. Strange omission on Revell's part considering (a) all of the other options that Revell includes in this kit, (b) the smaller wing bulges have already been created by Revell for the previous G-6 release and (c) the cover subject for Revell's G-10 has been clearly identified as one of those with the smaller wing bulges.
Alley Cat Models offers a drop-in resin replacement for modelers wishing to accurately portray a G-10 with smaller wing bulges.
Alley Cat also offers a resin correction set for the Revell G-10. It's quite comprehensive and addresses most, if not all, of the little complaints and shortcomings that have been identified with Revell's G-10 since its release. This is not a cockpit detail set... although Alley Cat includes some cockpit replacement parts, those that want to rehaul the kit cockpit (especially the sparsely decorated sidewalls) will have to look elsewhere. Even without the cockpit details, this is quite an expanse of resin...
The largest piece is the upper gun cowling. Apparently, the gun trough shape and space between them was not accurately portrayed by Revell. Alley Cat rectifies this by providing a replacement piece with revised gun troughs. You can see that the Alley Cat gun troughs are spaced further apart. I only wish that Alley Cat (or Revell) could've somehow portrayed that ill-fitting gap between the rear edge of the gun cowling and the rest of the fuselage that I see so often in pictures of the G-10.
The oil cooler is replaced by a slightly curvier version...
The supercharger intake? Can't really say what the difference is here, especially with the kit in two parts. Filling of a small sink mark will be avoided... yay!
The exhausts are interesting. Alley Cat kills a few birds with this one correction. The ends are hollowed out of course which means I won't have to be drilling out the pipes on this one. The kit exhausts are designed to be installed before the fuselage halve go together, which complicates painting. Alley Cat provides a way to install the exhausts after the fact by utilizing a mounting plate (essentially a strip of resin with a row of six holes). The mounting plate goes in first and the exhausts are installed individually at a later time, presumably after the majority of your painting is done. Spacing in the exhaust trough is very tight so how installation of those little pipes, one by one, practically plays out, we'll have to see.
Similar to the oil cooler, the ETC rack is given a slight shape massage...
As the theme of this set is CORRECTION not ADDED DETAIL, a few of these pieces are marked not by the presence of the items but the absence of them. The Alley Cat seat offers no additional detail but simply removes the molded seat belts. This allows the addition of AM or scratcbuilt harnesses of your choice without the headache of filing, grinding, sanding.
The inclusion of a joystick is a bit of surprise. Maybe its buried in all of the flash but I don't see much of an upgrade here.
Another example of the less-is-more philosophy in this correction set... the little discs that were present on the kit's control surfaces have been wiped off. An added benefit here is that the elevators and ailerons are now one-piece affairs.
The 109's little airscoops on the fuselage are molded as solid bumps on the kit. Alley Cat provides these fine hollow replacements but we'll have to perform some minor surgical removals to utilize them.
And finally we come to the propeller and spinner, which I think is the only "essential" piece in this set. The late model 109's broad VDM prop blades have a distinct "butter knife" look to them, which many manufacturer's fail to capture. Alley Cat's rendition captures the look better than the kit blades, especially near the tips.
Both the Revell and Alley Cat spinners portray the pinched openings correctly but the Revell version has two significant shortcomings. (1) The joint between the spinner and backplate does not occur on a natural seam line. Removal of that joint would be difficult to achieve since (2) the prop blades must be installed before that joint is formed. Alley Cat bypasses all of that headache by putting the backplate join line where it belongs AND giving one a nifty way of inserting the prop blades into the completed spinner using slots and pins.
I have Radu's fabulous looking harnesses on the way and I've yet to pull the trigger on the decal markings.