Trumpeter Bf 109E-3

[nmayhew]

hi guys,

 

here is what Lynn Rytger says about the kit over on HS...thought this might be of interest, and also make you all laugh!

 

Nick

 

<H1 style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 100%; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 0px; PADDING-TOP: 0px">This is all I have to say about that kit... (EDITED)</H1>December 11 2009, 9:08 AM

 

EDIT: Ok, that might be a bit harsh, but still... I've gone through the instructions page by page, and there are flashes of brilliance in there. I like the inclusion of the radio rack and MG 17 pressurization bottles in the aft fuselage, the main gear appears to make an attempt at replicating the original mount (trying to give the benefit of the doubt here), the radiator cooling shutters are separate, as is the oil cooler shutter, and the engine actually looks fairly decent. The MG-FF cannons seem ok at first glance, and I also like the separate covers along the wing leading edge- it was very common to see those removed when the aircraft was undergoing maintenance. Also, I don't know if they got the curvatures right, but they at least got the basic shape of the engine cover correct- i.e., they correctly provide the cutout where the supercharger intake mounts to the fuselage (one of the dumbest things in the Eduard kit). The photoetched gear well canvas liner is a very nice touch as well. It's too early to tell if the droptank and bomb racks are correctly shaped, but at least they made an effort to include the anti-sway braces and mounting straps separately. They also seem to have gotten the shape of the seat closer than Eduard, and the oxygen regulator seems to be close to right as well- again, too early to tell for sure, but at least it doesn't appear to be too tall. The fabric effect on the control surfaces looks very subtle, looking at the parts in the bag (first pic in the series), which is a substantial improvement on the Tudor-style framing of the Eduard kit. Looking at the wings, the slat chord appears to be noticeably thinner than the Eduard kit as well, so I have hope they got it closer than that kit.

 

But boy, when they screw up, they screw up BIG here... they include the oil tank of a Bf 109F-K along with the aforementioned MG 151/20 cannon cover in the cockpit, the radiator faces are trapezoids instead of rectangles, the mainwheels suffer from Eduarditis (i.e., they're solid with raised spokes- they look like Christmas ornaments), and something looks a bit odd in the pics showing the fuselage halves. Oh, and the engine mounts themselves are completely, irretrievably wrong, which seems to be a theme with Trumpeter and 109s.

 

So, based on what I'm seeing, there's a lot of useful bits here... I can't really tell about the overall shape, but if it's priced right I think you could build a pretty kickass Emil by combining the Trumpeter and Eduard kits.

 

We'll see.

 

Lynn

[Allok]

Not sure what's happening here.

Trumpeter had this kit slated for November but we still haven't seen one for sale yet.

Could they be doing last minute revisions?

Maybe it will turn into a Devastator