Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Happy Heinkel

Hello friends:

One way of dealing with Covid fatigue for me has been returning to a teenage obsession with model airplanes.  May have ordered these (from Wheels and Wings in Toronto, excellent store) after watching the Battle of Britain recently.

I crowdsourced which one to build on Twitter through my @Marshalluigi account and the Heinkel got slightly more votes, so off I want.  The Italieri 1/72 kit is fairly simple, not a lot of complex parts, which is kind of a blessing after the recent Lysander kit.

 

Oddly the kit included crew figures but the instructions said don’t use them.  Instructions be damned, I said.

Another excuse to watch The Battle of Britain.  “Tomato Eins en Alle, Tomato Eins en Alle, noch zehn Minuten bis Ziel!"  

There is something sleek and rounded about the HE111 that is quite graceful.  While it looks terribly vulnerable in the film, an HE111 carried a LOT of machine guns, six in this model variant.

I dreaded painting the nose canopy but it turned out well enough if viewed at a distance.

I suppose a distant project might be making a handful of BoB 1/72nd models for a game TFL’s Bag the Hun, though I might just hang it from the ceiling as teenage me used to do.

Thanks for looking.  Blessings to your models,

MP+

16 comments:

  1. The HE111 is an elegant looking design.

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    1. I think it's the rounded lines and the fuselage, which reminds me of a fish. As you say, elegant.

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  2. Lovely job. I agree with your comments re elegance and vulnerability. I think I have a Revell '111 kit somewhere....

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    1. Thanks Tim. I'd like one of those Revell kits myself. Why have one Heinkel when I could have several? :)

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  3. BoB was one of my fav films as a lad, always happy to watch it with my grandpa and drink in his love for Spit's and Hurricanes.

    Heinkel 111 was indeed a cool looking light bomber. My own kit I built in my younger years never got painted but still flew from my ceiling trying to maneuver away from my RAF fighters.

    I think the nose looks fine up close - you should feel more confident. :)

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    1. Thanks Dai, glad you got to know your grandpa like that. Wish I'd had the pleasure. We probably had similar ceilings as kids. My WW2 planes flew suspended near spaceships and jet fighters, it all made sense to me. :)

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  4. The nose looks good. If you run into the situation again, look for some masking medium, at an art supply store,just put on areas to protect, then peel off after the paint dried. Takes the white out of knuckles.

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    1. Good advice - I like Eduard kits because they come with pre-cut masking sections!

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  5. "Attention Red Leader. Bandits incoming one one five, two zero miles, Angels 4."
    "Roger Control."
    "Good hunting Red Leader."

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    1. Red Leader voice: Robert Shaw, Michael Caine, or Christopher Plummer?

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  6. Yes agree..The Battke of Britain is a great film...when DVD's were first "a thing", I decided I would only buy ones I wanted to keep and watch again and again...BoB was one of the first! Nice work on the German bomber too.

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    1. It's such a great film, tells a story, the history is more or less accurate and the planes are real! Couldn't be done today.

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  7. Great to see you enjoying this craft once more, you certainly haven’t lost the touch.

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    1. Thanks Alan, I find it very satisfying to look at the results of my work, which I usually leave out, whereas my wargaming toys when finished tend to go into boxes.

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  8. Nice result Padre. I too have been building kits. The latest being the 1/48 ICM Me 109, which is going to take pride of place in a Chain of Command scenario at some stage. One suggestion for painting canopies is that you can obtain any number of pre cut masks for specific models. Apply, (a bit fiddly) spray paint, wait and peel.

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    1. Thanks Doug. Looking forward to seeing your ME109 and what you do with it. I did build an Eduard kit recently (1/48 Lysander) with precut masking pieces and they worked a treat once I learned to apply them with tweezers. For smaller scale models, I think I might just stick with a 000 brush and as steady a hand as I can muster!

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