Sunday, December 18, 2011

Revell Junkers G.38






These are pictures of Revell's 1/144th scale Junkers G.38 airliner. I enjoyed this model considerably. The G.38 is decidedly unusual, with a combination of an elegantly swept wing, a square-section fuselage that is about as graceful as a box girder bridge, and landing gear that somehow reminds me of a steam locomotive. But it has an odd appeal for me. Maybe its greatest appeal is that it isn't a Panther or an F-16.

The kit itself is very nicely done and fun to build. The corrugations are particularly well-done, and the kit even has a modest interior, though I question the accuracy of the control yokes on the flight deck, which look more like something you'd see on the Cutty Sark than an airplane. I didn't use the clear plastic parts for the fuselage windows and used Micro Klear instead, but the other transparencies worked pretty well, and didn't even need glue (the "skylights" over the engines simply pressed in, while the glass in the wing roots, nose and flight deck needed only a little Future to hold them in place).

The corrugations make it hard to clean up the seam at the leading edge of the wing, but at the same time, they made it easier to paint the black stripes on the wings. The parts layout of the fuselage leave one with no seams to clean up at all.

On the whole, I very much enjoyed this kit, and I personally think it would be a riot to get a seat inside the wings of a G.38 - the view forward must have been quite striking indeed, though the roar of the inboard engines might make it hard to enjoy the airline version of "603 Squadron".

PS: Something drastic has happened to the Blogger editor. Either they changed something, or I changed something, but either way, I am NOT impressed with how it's working right now.

3 comments:

-Warren Zoell said...

I love these types of craft. It's too bad they never make them in a larger scale which ticks me off.
As for blogger their motto is "If it aint broke fix it".

Anonymous said...

The tech industry has to keep making "improvements" to justify their existence. Usually it makes the system worse.

Nice build, but 1/144 is kind of too small for me. Heck, I think 1/72nd is slumming.

William said...

I think I generally prefer 1/48th scale models - I like their size, their level of detail, and their wide range. But for some reason I keep building 1/144th scale models. I know, it makes no sense. It's like saying "I'd rather eat steak" while eating asparagus. Why don't I just get a steak? It's a mystery.