Italeri 1/72 Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 By Peter Hobbins

History

With its distinctive trimotor layout, the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero (Sparrowhawk) is probably the most famous of all Italian WWII designs, and perhaps rightly so. Soundly designed and - in the anti-shipping role - courageously flown, it was a considerable thorn in the side of the Allies in the Mediterranean theater until overwhelmed by Allied air superiority. In service the Sparviero was more frequently called 'Gobbo Maleditto' or 'Damned Hunchback' on account of the humped defensive position behind the cockpit. Don't let the nickname fool you, though: like many pre-war designs, it also served as an airliner and racer, but whatever roles it took it was popular with all who flew (and fought) in it.

Construction

For a preview of what you get when you open the box on this new-tooled kit from Italeri, please visit my previous First Look from January 2004. I noted at that time that the specific Serie of SM.79 that this kit is meant to represent is unclear, but it is likely to be a SM.79-II, although not many of them had engines with 9-cylinder faces as provided in this kit (i.e. the 18-cylinder Fiat A80 RC.41). I decided that it could also represent a -I Serie with Alfa-Romeo 126 RC.34 9-cylinder units, which fitted in neatly with my desire to paint this model in a Spanish Civil War scheme. This distinction over powerplants was important as I had decided that for the purposes of a review model, I wanted to build this kit strictly out of the box (OK, apart from the markings).

Unlike most modelers, I never start with the cockpit. In this case I spent an evening removing most of the main structures from the sprues and cleaning up mold seams, filling the few ejector pin marks (mainly on the inside of the fuselage), and generally test-fitting components. I then immediately broke with the instructions and decided to build the wings first, mainly because it is a tricky setup and test-fitting suggested that if I attached the lower wing to the fuselage and then added the upper surfaces as instructed, I might have problems getting everything to fit properly.

The first step is to cement the wheel wells into the lower wing section, then the moveable ailerons are trapped in place as the upper surfaces of the wings are attached. Once this is dry, the engine bearer section can be glued into the leading edge. This was followed by some Tamiya filler to hide the join marks inside the wheel wells, plus a middling amount of filler and sanding to fair the engine bearers into the wing and tidy up the leading edge. The ailerons were glued in place, in opposing deflections.

Here's a tip I used several times when building the model: Gunze Mr Surfacer (and to a lesser extent Tamiya putty) can be removed or smoothed out by rubbing over them with a Q-tip dipped in Gunze Mr Color Thinner. This is really helpful in an area like the wheel wells where you can apply the filler but can't easily get access to sand it back - a minute or so of rubbing with the Q-tip produced a nice, even surface. The instructions suggest that the undercarriage legs should be attached to the wheel wells before they are inserted into the wings, but I felt this was a recipe for disaster and - after a test-fit confirmed they could be squeezed in after assembly - I kept them separate and painted them up for later use. The wheel wells themselves were sprayed silver and given a black wash to bring out the molded-in detail.

Like the wings, the fuselage is made up of a number of components. First, one needs to add and blend in (with some effort) the fuselage sections for the gunner's station; why these are molded separate eludes me. Again I departed from the instructions and decided to attach the upper fuselage panel (which allows access to the bomb-bay from above), and the lower gondola section to opposing fuselage halves. This allowed me to blend them in as much as possible on the inside, given the amount of glazing (in the end, you really can't see that much through the windows once it's all sealed up). I also installed the closed fuselage door and the windows at this stage; I first dipped them in Future, then masked them on both sides with Tamiya tape, before gluing in place. I then used Mr Surfacer and my Q-tip technique to fair them in, as they are a pretty loose fit. I decided to attach the fuselage bulkheads to the floor as a separate assembly, then join this to the fuselage after painting.

The insides were sprayed British interior gray-green, which is the closest I had to the very vivid interior green the Italians used. I then hit this with a wash of thinned raw umber artist's oil paint to bring out the detail, and painted in the various throttles, radios, etc that are molded in the kit.

While not bad, the gunner's station and cockpit are relatively visible in the finished model, so it wouldn't hurt to add some more detail depending on your references. I would also suggest blanking off the fuselage sides (where they flare out to become the wing root fairings) as this gap is quite apparent if built out of the box as mine was. The bulkhead/floor section does not have a very clear set of attachment points and a bit of bending and twisting was required to maneuver it into place.

All this left was to remove the masking from the inside of the windows, then the fuselage halves were glued together. The fit here is fine, but one needs to be careful with the alignment around the tricky gunner's station area. I should point out that one can model the bomb-bay access panel, the bomb-bay doors and the fuselage entry door open if desired. However, because I was building out of the box I felt the detail inside the fuselage wasn't up to the standard I would like if I was showing these areas off, so I glued them shut.

Some effort is required to neatly finish off the fuselage seams, as there are quite a few, especially once the kit canopy is attached. This is a tricky insert and I would suggest masking the clear panels before gluing it in place, as I had to scrape, fill and sand the whole cockpit/canopy area a good deal to achieve a smooth transition. The same is true for the areas around the bomb-bay access panel and particularly the lower gondola area, which requires a lot of careful work to avoid showing the seam lines. Once more, I would suggest masking the windows on the clear gondola front section prior to sanding as this area takes some effort to fair in smoothly. I left off the kit torpedo and shackles mainly because I was building a bomber rather than the aerosilurante version, but also because the shackles are a bit crude if used out of the box (the torpedo is quite nice, though).

I usually attack the tailplanes before the mainplanes as I find I can get a nice square reference point in the tail section which helps with setting the wings up correctly. The tailplanes on this kit fit fairly well - with a smidge of Mr Surfacer along the join - but I had to fiddle with the struts a little to get them to sit neatly (they are also tricky to blend in, but this is a problem in any kit with tailplane struts). The wing section was then mated to the fuselage. This was far from ideal, and in order to achieve the correct placement and dihedral, I had to slice away some of the wing root on the port side and accept a sizeable gap on the starboard side (which was of course filled). This could be the fault of the builder rather than the kit - if I had assembled it as per the instructions then perhaps it would have worked better. More filler, sanding and rescribing thus ensued to tidy up this area ready for painting.

Painting

The first painting step was easy, as I just sprayed the undersides in Aeromaster Grigio Azzuro Chiaro, which went on very nicely. This was slightly post-faded with a lightened mix of the same color. I then sprayed the propeller hubs, wingtips and rudder (which I had kept separate from the tail) in white, along with a section on the fuselage side where the white number '6' appears. The stylized 6 was masked off along with the lower surfaces prior to spraying the upper surfaces. After painting the upper area in what I thought was Italian sand color, it came out almost brown so I ended up mixing my own from some Gunze colors and respraying.

Then came the mottle. I had been preparing for painting this model for some time because I wanted to use the intricate mottle scheme. Basically, every time I finished spraying a color in the months beforehand, I used the dregs to practice painting tiny patches of mottle, trying to keep them irregular in shape yet approximately equal in size.

Following advice from other modelers, I worked my way around the airframe, spraying small patches at a time - a wingtip here, a tailplane there, the nose next, then under the tail, etc. This helps reduce the likelihood of getting too regular with the pattern or of the blotches getting bigger over time.

Perhaps the trickiest bit was not only spraying a Verde Oliva Scuro mottle first, but leaving room for the second color (Bruno Mimetico) too. After several extended painting sessions, the mottle finish was done, although little of the underlying sand had to be resprayed here and there to tidy up some over-enthusiastic blobs. I hadn't glued the engines on at this point (which made it much easier to spray the areas under the cowlings), but I pressed them into place when doing the mottle just to make sure the cowling patterns aligned reasonably well with the mounts. It was only at this point that I added and faired in the exhausts to the cowlings, then sprayed the front of each cowling silver before hand-painting the bronze band and exhausts.

All of the model's components now received a coat of Tamiya clear gloss in preparation for decaling.

Decals and final finishing

The markings for this model mainly came from the ancient ESCI 'new decals' set for SM.79s (originally intended for the Airfix kit). They had yellowed and required a few weeks in the sun to whiten up again before use.

To be honest the Spanish Civil War markings of black circles and white crosses might actually have been better painted on rather than using decals - the crosses in particular require a lot of carrier film which I didn't completely get rid of. I did use some of the Italeri kit's decals - the small serial number on the tail and the Alfa-Romeo logos on the propellers - and they worked quite nicely.

I had a bit of a disaster with my setting solution, however (Gunze Mr Mark Softer): while the decals reacted well enough to it and snuggled down, I had a brain spasm and left the model with beads of setting fluid still on the decals (I usually dab the excess off with a Q-tip). When I came back later there were wrinkled little sections rather like small fingerprints where the softener had really attacked the decals. There wasn't much I could do here apart from try to smooth it down the best I could, but it was a painful lesson learnt!

Another gloss coat was followed by a wash of thinned burnt umber oil into the panel lines, followed by some silver chipping on the metal areas (most of the SM.79's exterior was wood or fabric, so be careful in this regard). This was then flattened with Gunze Flat Clear which I find never really gives a flat coat, but dries to a satin finish which is appropriate for a somewhat weathered Regia Aeronautica aircraft. Some chalk pastel dust was used to create a fairly subtle stain behind each exhaust, and little bit was added to dirty up the tires and wheel wells, plus the wing immediately behind them.

Finally, the last details could be added: the engines and propellers were glued in place, the undercarriage and doors were attached, and the upper gun and access panels were positioned. Apart from the decals, the only out-of-box detail I added was the rigging for the upper wing and tailplanes. Italeri has actually molded some small indents in these surfaces where the rigging should attach, so I drilled these out and rigged the model with invisible mending thread, attached with dots of super glue.

Conclusion

This is a nice kit of a very attractive airplane. It is quite large - about the size of a C-47 - yet the kit really has very few parts. I have to admit that while my initial test-fitting made me think this model would fall together easily, there are quite a few areas that require some filling and sanding in order to produce a nice, seam-free finish (which I didn't completely achieve).

The complexity of the fuselage and wings - which I can only assume point to the possibility of other versions in the future - ensure it's not a straightforward build. The molded detail is fine but not up to the standards of, say, the latest Revell of Germany kits.

Not having built the old Airfix kit I can't compare the two, but when finished I was very happy with the final result. One needn't go for the complex mottle pattern - there are plenty of attractive green-over-grey torpedo-bomber schemes - but it was a good challenge for me and helps this elegant trimotor really stand out on a display table.

Thanks again to Italeri for bringing out a new kit of this important WWII airplane, and thanks also to Sandle Hobbies for the review sample.