By Jamie Haggo (October 2010)
Trumpeter must be the most talked about company on the web forums, it seems there is a huge amount of blah spread all over the place whenever there is a new release and with a subject as popular as an Me 109 you won’t be surprised to hear there was a furore with this release. I hate these discussions on the forums; all I want to know is where the faults with the kit are so I can have a stab at correcting them if I want to [spot on Jamie – I second that! Ed]. Too often it gets personal and/or political which serves no purpose at all, then the thread gets deleted and everybody loses out. What I am to do here is give my honest opinion of the kit, where it falls down and where the good points are to help others come to their own conclusion.
The package is typical Trumpeter with a really nice painting on the top, this is something that they have been getting better with over time, and in the past some art work has been really poor however they seem to have over come this.
The instruction booklet is typical Trumpeter however the construction sequence looks pretty sensible, often the sub assemblies are a bit jumbled up but not in this case. The painting guide is really nice, however if I was to make one minor criticism it is the contrast between the RLM 74 and 75 colours, they are quite hard to separate.
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There are 7 grey sprues of crisply moulded parts, there is riveting and this is quite well done although I’m sure it won’t be to everyone’s tastes. The rudder looks a bit off to me; I don’t think it’s deep enough so a replacement or modification will be required. The spinner also looks a bit bulbous but we’ll have to see what it looks like on the model to be sure. The engine is pretty nice being a well detailed multi part affair although all the wiring is missing so a fair amount of detailing will be required to capture the busy look of the original; to be fair though it’s pretty hard to do this in plastic! The cockpit is also very nice, more detail means more components however everything is included (apart from the wiring again) and I can’t wait to break out the RLM 66 and get cracking. The instrument panel is moulded in clear with a decal that goes on the front, I don’t quite get that; why not mould it in grey? You could mask the dials, paint the panel and then add the decal to the back though.
