ICM 1:72 HEINKEL HE-51B-2

 

Reviewer: Hrvoje Šafhauzer (contact via SMAKR webmaster)
Kit Review submitted:  January 2009

Kit Details:

Aircraft History:

Development of an earlier He-49, He-51 was first fighter airplane of reconstituted Luftwaffe, beating Arado 68 both in timing and quantity. While some of them saw service with both Legion Condor and Spanish Nationalist during Spanish Civil War, floatplane version B-2 was only used by Luftwaffe, including service on some capital ships. Being slower than standard landplane version, that itself had lower maximum speed comparing to available nominal engine power than some of the contemporary designs, it was pretty quickly replaced by dedicated observation floatplanes and relegated to training units.

The Kit:

This particular kit was given to me last summer as a birthday gift, together with another ICM kit – He-51 A-1. OK, the person is not versed in modeling, and at first sight the boxarts are showing two different planes…

Parts are the same as in other two ICM's He-51 kits, plus an additional dedicated sprue with parts for a floatplane version. Instructions clearly state which "parts are not for use" and what is to be removed during construction. Parts in my kit had very little flash, which was easy removable by modeling knife. Plastic used is on softish side, asking for care when parts are being removed from the sprues and cleaning the sprue gates. This is to be of some importance when coming to the floats, but more on this later. Some parts need to be scratch built and for that purpose two 1/72 scale drawings are provided. I wondered why they were able to make the beautiful individual exhaust pipes and other small parts, but not mold the simple steps on the float struts? 

Decals are provided for two aircraft with earlier and later pre-war "die Balkenkreutzen" (bordered crosses), and one fin and rudder flag set. Swastikas are provided as "windows" requiring cutting to proper shape, for keeping in line with legal provisions in certain European countries. Funny, in the same countries regular appearance of the dreaded swastika in the historical films or TV series, books etc, is not creating outcries…

Construction:

As usual, I prepainted parts on the bigger sprue. For the aircraft interior I used Revell 45 light olive for RLM 02, Humbrol 92 iron gray for instrument panel, Humbrol 53 gunmetal for MG barrels, radiator, and control stick. ICM states pale green for the interior, but I overlooked this. For the exhaust parts, I used 90/10 mixture of Revell 84 leather brown and 91 steel. In prepainting I made a mistake by painting the wrong side of the parts 36 and 37, but there were no consequences since these are to be completely covered by other exhaust components. Propeller spinner and inner of blades were painted in Revell 82 earth brown, as per painting and box bottom art.

During construction I removed the parts from the sprues on a need basis, cleaning them carefully to avoid damaging the parts. Instructions start with assembling the cockpit, as usual, but I started with assembling the propeller to engine front. This was followed by assembling the individual exhaust pipes to the parts A36 and A37. They fit wonderfully into the slots with dab of liquid glue required, and I mostly used Revell Contacta professional with needle applicator. DO NOT DO THIS. Especially if one is to use airbrush for painting, since the exhausts are protruding close over nose panels. Next time I would use only two exhaust pipes for positioning parts A28 and A27 over A36 and A37 respectively, and attach all of them after painting the model. Next, I removed fuselage halves from a sprue, clean them, and removed unnecessary parts. It is a short run kit, but test fitting revealed much better mating of the parts than in some older mainstream produced kits.

After bad experiences with Pavla's Messenger where I had to trim resin cockpit to a maximum amount and carve deeply into the fuselage sides to achieve a good fit, I test fitted the cockpit floor into the fuselage with some trepidation, but all passed with no problems. So, cockpit parts were assembled per instructions. I made no seat harnesses, planning to place pilot, one of Airfix variety will fit the bill. ICM provides no pilot nor harnesses at all. Anyhow, due to small cockpit opening, detailing should be kept at reasonable level. Instrument panel and cockpit assembly were glued into the starboard fuselage, the port one was placed in place and clamped together with clothespins. When the glue dried, the fuselage halves mating surfaces were covered with glue and rejoined, secured again by the clothespin and rubber bands and left to dry properly. In doing this I was a little careless, allowing the rear of the starboard half to slip some half of a mm down, a thing that I realized only tomorrow. That was rectified with trimming and using some stretched sprue to fill a gap, followed by sanding. Fuselage joints were sanded also. In the meantime, I assembled the floats and let them aside. Looking back, I should have placed some weight in the float tips to get more proper appearance at the end, but it is up to you. 

The tail is provided with slots for the horizontal tailplanes, but their roots and tabs required some trimming to get in properly – no big deal. Rudder was attached, and let to dry also. This was followed by adding ventral fin in and headrest, typical for this subvariant. Instructions call for placing the exhausts, engine front with propeller and engine top cover with MG barrels at this stage, but I left the engine front with propeller assembly to the very end of construction knowing that it was to impede during the wings and floats assembling to fuselage. Some even trimming of the exhaust components was required to seal in to the required slots. Some sanding was required for fitting the engine top cover, but nothing major. Windscreen printed on the clear acetate was cut and bent. Since it has a slot to be opened for a gunsight, I fashioned a telescope one from the stretched sprue. No drawing from my references, including a cutaway, show any sight, so I made an educated guess regarding the length and spacing of the sight supports, using Heller's Caudron C.714 as a model. Guides for placing a windscreen are provided at the fuselage top so positioning is not questionable, and Revell Contacta glue from tube was used for attaching it to the fuselage. Now, everything was ready for fun called attaching the wings.

Lower wings were butt joined, so I slightly sanded their mating surfaces. Also I deepened the blind holes for wing struts, and made a new one for pitot tube as required. Blind holes were also made deeper at upper wing undersurfaces also, but be warned not to do this at the rear holes for cabane struts, it is not needed and the reason is to be revealed soon. The front view of the aircraft shows no lower wing dihedral, so this had to beachieved accordingly. After thorough drying, it was time for attaching the upper wing, and I started with attaching the cabane struts to the upper wing (this is not a Matchbox biplane with their clever way of struts). Unfortunately the kit designer trimmed the wrong locating peg at parts A34 and 35, so I removed them where required, leaving me with only two for positive placing into the upper wing. Liquid glue was applied and manually the required angle of the struts splay was obtained. I also tested wing struts entering into the respective holes, and glued them little later into the upper wing also. After short drying thime, I attached upper wing to rest of the assembly. At times I needed three hands, but eventually it all ended well. Almost. It appears that wing struts were made about 1mm short, and with glue drying I opted not to waste my time in making new ones. Strong pliers were brought to action and lower wings bent, creating dihedral. Not accurate but it shall do. I would advise to leave wing holes as they are, glue the struts using superglue and building up later the fairings around wing roots. Also, if available I would suggest scanning the instructions' 1/72 side view and making templates from thicker paper for positioning the wings. Since this model was assembled during the New Year Holidays, I could not do it. Same thing could be suggested for floats, using the front view previously mentioned. Which was also to be useful when adding the struts to the floats later.

The radiator, splitter plate, and radiator bath, in that order, were glued into place, and it was time for a second round of fun - attaching the floats. This was a tricky operation, since the floats are, like a landplane landing gear, of cantilever type, meaning that there are no struts interconnecting them not providing the stiffness needed. Also, the plastic used leads to poor stiffness of these struts, so assembly flexes when glued by styrene glue. Maybe the superglue would be of better use, but I almost always make a mess when using it. So the struts were attached to the floats first, and when dried a little the were canted according to the drawing, and where locating pegs proved useful. Then, I glued starboard float to the fuselage, followed by port one several hours later, and using some paint tinlets for keeping in required position. However locating pegs for fuselage are shallow, and for the rear struts there is no positive attachment point, so complete assembly is flexing a little. When dried, rest of the small parts were added, and model was ready for painting. One is to notice that there are no rigging wires. I admit that I am too clumsy/lazy to make them, and no biplane model of mine is sporting them at all.


© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009

Painting & Decaling:

Painting scheme is simple, single color overall, with float bottoms and lower sides and rear of propeller blades painted in black. ICM's instructions are calling for 50:50 mixture of ModelMaster's pale green and mat gull gray. Yugoslav article from 1995  states that the Do-22 Kj floatplanes were painted in RLM 02 and suggesting Revell 76 "Schiefergrau", i.e. slate gray. After considering using the dedicated slate gray paint, I decided to use Revell 362 satin green-gray, and using a fine brush for details and a bigger one for the surfaces. Naturally, in a case of more elaborate schemes it is advisable to prepaint wings and fuselage before assembling them together.

Several days later I masked the float sides and applied gloss household black enamel to the bottom and part of the sides, as well as the propeller blades rear surfaces. These were going to be covered with clear matt paint later anyhow. In mask applying and removing process I managed not only to knock off some small parts, but also to separate both float assemblies from airframe. Definitely some stronger glue was required. Broken parts were reattached and required touch ups made. With hindsight, prepainting the floats before assembling them to airframe would be preferable.

Reading of the ICM kit reviews revealed mixed opinions about their decals, so I started cautiously opting to firstly applying the two underwing 1936-style white bordered crosses without black trim. They acted well, so I continued with other crosses, and fuselage and wing codes, applicable for a plane serving aboard Leipzig cruiser. This can not be said for the tail flag, which dried stiff and not being able to cover fin leading edge properly. The red paint and brush were used to touch up detail, meaning that I had to repaint complete decals at the plane, especially after damage made trying to position swastika. About swastika, between overpainting the "window" parts or trimming them I opted for wrong solution, and trimmed decal promptly broke apart when inserted to water. And my meager swastikas collection does not contain proper ones. My trying to patch it together resulted in damaging flag decal that required more touching up. Consequently I sealed decal painting all fabric covered parts with Revell 02 mat clear, leaving the airframe metal parts in satin shade. For tail swastika, I simply draw a new one in ACAD and print it on self adhesive paper (I had no blank decal sheets, yet). If I eventually find the adequate decal it would be easy to peel them off and apply a new one.

At the end, I placed a prepainted pilot through cockpit opening. Guess what – he stuck firmly and there is even no need to glue him.


© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009

Conclusions:

This is a nice kit, with enough parts providing opportunity to build any of the three He-51 versions, A-1, B-1 and B-2, all being boxed separately by ICM. In the golded times, the KP or Airfix would box all three versions in a box, offering a decal option for each of them, and supplying us with quite a few parts for scrap box (and this is why I have three Mosquito II/VI/XVI kits). It appears that ICM is currently not offering a boxing with the WWII fighter trainer option, but parts are in there for the unspatted main wheels and spatted tailwheel instead of tailskid. Meaning, the sourcing Luftwaffe WWII-style crosses and applicable training unit codes and badges would be required.

I do not know how Hasegawa kit looks like, but this one is having the mostly good fit of the parts, and simple scratchbuilding and tweaking is required. I would recommend it for all of you willing to tackle the biplanes. As for myself, I am intending to make other one in colors of AB123 training unit, as soon as I source the proper codes.


© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009

References:


© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009

 

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