Hasegawa 1/72 Heinkel He-51

HASEGAWA 1:72 HEINKEL HE-51

Current boxart

Two versions of Old boxart supplied by Walter Fischer

Reviewer: Dave McDougall (crustyoldseadog@aol.com)
Kit Review submitted: October 2000

Aircraft:
In the 1930s, as the likelihood of Allied legal action receded Heinkel dared to build aircraft that openly contravened the Versailles Treaty. The He 51 was a biplane fighter, developed from the He49. The He 51 replaced the Ar 65 as the main fighter of the newly reborn Luftwaffe. Though the initial order for the He 51A-1 was only 75, Heinkel was unused to such an order and many were built under license by Ago, Erla, Arado and Fiesler. In March 1935 the Luftwaffe was publicly announced, and the JG1 “Richthofen” fighter squadron was combat-ready at Döberitz with its new Heinkels. In November 1936, 36 He 51A-1s went to Spain with the Legion Kondor, giving a sufficiently good showing for the Nationalists to buy at least 30 from Heinkel. There followed a total of 50 various He 51B seaplane versions. The final batch comprised 79 C-1 ground attack fighters, of which 28 served in Spain. The He 51 was still in service in September 1939, operating in the close-support role in Poland, and remained as an advanced trainer until 1943.

The Kit:
My kit arrived in a typically sized Hasegawa box. Opening this revealed a total of 35 parts in light grey plastic along with one transparent windscreen piece; all neatly protected in a plastic bag. These are well molded and had no flash on them. Detail is okay; not poor but perhaps not quite up to quite the usual quality expected from Hasegawa. I was rather disappointed to see that no cockpit details are provided other than a chair and a pilot figure. As the cockpit area is open, some modelers might want to add some extra detail to this area. There is a choice of undercarriage parts supplied. (Wheels for the A version and floats for the B seaplane version.)

Instructions:
The instructions come on a small eight-sided booklet. A useful diagram showing the contents of the sprues is given, along with a paragraph containing a reasonable amount of background information on this aircraft. Two further sides show the two colour schemes offered by Hasegawa. The majority of the instruction booklet is however, given over to an eight stage exploded diagram showing the stages of construction. I had no problems in following this.

Construction:
I will only briefly mention construction as I had no problems here. The instructions follow the normal progression of cockpit, fuselage, wings and undercarriage. Fit of the various parts is up to Hasegawa’s usual high standard. The cockpit and fuselage was built first.

This didn’t take long and was followed by attaching the bottom wings, tail and engine exhausts. A separate piece is provided for the top of the engine cowling. This was about 1½ to 2 mm too short but this was easily fixed with a bit of modeling putty. This was the only bit of putty that I needed to use on the whole kit.

The next stage was to attach the top wing. Please note that the wing has a distinct bend to it. – It’s not warped so don’t try to correct it. The top wing is to be attached to the bottom and fuselage with 2 sets of wing struts (one for each side of the wing) and 2 struts attached to the central fuselage. I started by gluing the struts onto the top wing. Each of the struts has a tab which fits neatly into a slot provided by Hasegawa in the top wing. Now here’s the cunning part. – The tabs are angled so that the struts slot into the top wing at the correct angle for fitting onto the bottom wing. Once the glue was firmly dry, I started to fit the top wing complete with struts to the bottom wing. Each of the struts has a small peg that fits in a hole situated on the bottom wing or onto the sides of the fuselage in front of the cockpit. I fitted the central fuselage struts first. The appropriate holes looked a bit on the small side, so I drilled them out first with a pin drill. As the holes are on the side of the fuselage, you’ll need to use tweezers to pull the struts out slightly, slide them into position, and then release to allow them to “ping” into the holes. Once dry, I then superglued the wing struts into position; one at a time. Hey presto wings completed!

The last thing to do was to fit the undercarriage and this was easily done.

Versions & Decals:
Two different colour schemes are provided; one for the A version (“1/JG ‘Richthofen’ 1935 summer”) and one for the B (“Küstenjagdgruppe 136”). You are given a choice of Mr. Color or Gunze Sangyo paints and you also get a description (e.g. “Flat Black”) If you use a different brand of paints (I primarily use Humbrol) then you’ll need a colour conversion chart. Both paint schemes are broadly similar; the overall colour being grey. Now, Hasegawa describe this as “Light Grey” and the box art does indeed show a light shade of grey. However, I was a bit dubious about this as the colour illustrations I’ve seen for this aircraft show them in a grey that has a distinct greenish tinge to it. I created this by mixing Humbrol 31 “Slate Grey” and 64 “Light Grey” to get a good match.

The decals provided were of good quality, but I did have trouble with the red band which has to be fitted to both sides of the tail. – This took a lot of jiggery pokery (and cursing) before it was lined up on both sides of the tail. In fact I managed to completely knacker one of the decals in the process. Luckily, Hasegawa have provided two of each band. (One has a Swastika applied and the other has a separate decal for this.) If I was going to build this kit again, I’d be tempted to paint the band on by hand. Hasegawa have in fact given you this option as they’ve thoughtfully provided a further set of spare decals, this time being a Swastika within a white circle. You could therefore paint your own band and then fit this decal.

Accuracy:
I can’t comment too much on accuracy as I don’t have a set of plans for this aircraft. The wingspan is very slightly underscale at 151mm. (It should be 152.77mm.) However I think that’s acceptable. However, the overall length of 118mm appears to be a compromise between 8.40m(116.66mm) for the A version and 9.20m (127.77mm) for the B version. In terms of overall looks, I’d say it was fine.

Overall:
Overall, a very nice model. Having built a number of biplane models where wings/struts were a real challenge, I was extremely pleased with how easy it was to fit the wings in this kit. If you couple this with the fairly small number of parts, I’d happily recommend this kit to a beginner. Nice one Hasegawa.

Why not add in all the old boxart - this one probably the first release

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