Legato 1/72 scale Hansa- Brandenburg B1 kits By Pedro Nuno Soares

History

The Hansa-Brandenburg B1 aircraft was probably the most important trainer of the Austro-Hungarian Army, with a production run that totaled 355 aircraft through the end of the war. This was not the final production figure though, since production in Flugzeugwerk Fischamend (the A-H manufacturer of the type) would go on in spite of the official end of hostilities. The type would also be built under licence by several concerns and luckily one of these licence built aircraft, an Aero B1, survives, meticulously restored, at the Czech Aviation Museum of Kbeli, in Prague. (Some pictures I took can be seen by clicking here).

The original design was produced by Hansa-Brandenburg in Germany, but from 1915, aircraft from the initial production batch, series 05. were delivered to Flugzeugwerk Fischamend for conversion to dual control trainers and redesignated as 06.51-99

From 1916 on, though, this A-H army production unit began producing totally new aircraft already in trainer configuration and this, as I have already mentioned, would go on during the entire duration of the war and beyond, with several series for which the main differentiating feature was the choice of powerplant. In fact the early series all used the Mercedes 100 HP engine. While later series, would use Daimler or Hiero engines.

The Kits

Legato is a Czech kit producer that is frequently associated with resin kits, so for me it was something of a surprise when I heard that this maker would be changing to injected plastic for its latest 1/72nd offerings (something I always welcome, since even if resin kits are getting better and better I still prefer plastic, mainly for the flexibility inherent to this medium as far as glues are concerned). And what an offer it is! The Legato HB1 series comprises three subtypes: kit LPK 7210 for series 05, kit LPK 7211 for series 76/176/276 and kit LPK 7209 for series 77, the last two being the subjects of this review.

As would be expected given the few differences between the various subtypes Legato's kits are based on a common main sprue to which some resin bits are added to cater for any specific particulars.

The quality of the injected plastic is on par with what is now being done throughout Eastern Europe, with well defined surfaces, razor thin trailing edges, nicely subtle rib representation, and the inner side structure being moulded into the fuselage halves.

The cockpit is well furnished, with seats, rudder bar, control column (these last two being a mix of PE and plastic) and instrument panel. Given the large opening there’s scope for the superdetailers amongst you, but if you feel like leaving it as it is I’m sure that the kit parts are more than enough to give the office a busy look. The structure for the floor, reminiscent of Toko’s Sopwith Strutter, is best discarded and replaced by a flat board. Also, the instruction sheet for series 77 calls for the rear cockpit to have a ruder bar installed but given the fact that series 77 were single -seater's I suppose this should be left in the box.

Dimensionally the kit parts are a very good match to the general-arrangement (GA) drawing in FMP’s large tome Aircraft of the Austro-Hungarian Army, both for fuselage and flying surfaces. In fact the only dimensional discrepancy I found was in the length of the fuselage, that for the series 76 is about 1 mm too short (Nitpicker? Moi!!!!???) while for the series 77 the difference becomes slightly bigger but still well within normal tolerances. Incidentally, it should be noted that given the fact that the series 77 had a longer nose to accommodate the also longer Daimler engine, Legato supplies a resin nose that has to be glued to the top front of the fuselage after performing some simple surgery to the injected kit parts.

My only point of disagreement with the shape of the kit parts has to do with the rudder. Legato supplies three different rudders but from looking at the photos in the FMP book and also the GAs therein, I come to the conclusion that the two that are meant for the versions under review are not particularly accurate. The kit parts are too narrow and the wrong contour but this is really no big problem since it is fairly easy to cut a new rudder from a bit of plastic sheet.

The FMP book gives the following general characteristics for the options contained in the Legato decal sheets:

It is thus clear that series 77 aircraft used the Daimler engine, and this is where Legato could have done things better. In fact the same very well cast and detailed Mercedes engine that is issued for the series 76, 176, 276 kits is supplied for the series 77 kit and this would be totally wrong because even if the engines might not be that different in general shape (at least in 1/72nd) the Mercedes had the exhaust pipes on the starboard side, while the Daimler blew to port. So if you’re doing the series 77 at the very least mount the exhaust pipes on the other side of what the instructions tell you to.

The other main question I have regarding Legato parts options concerns the tailplane. From looking at photos of the HB B1 it is clear that two types of tailplane were used even though the shape was absolutely the same. One, the earlier type, was installed atop the rear fuselage, resulting in a small step to the rear, while the other was ‘inserted’ into the rear fuselage, the top panel being thus perfectly smooth with no transition.

For series 77 and 76/176/276, Legato tells us to use the ‘external’ type of tailplane. Well, if this would be correct for 76.51, all the other machines for which the kits supply decals seem to be of the internal tailplane type. What I find even more strange is that the sprue “image” in the instruction sheet does contain the appropriate tailplane parts, although they are not present in the kit sprue. This convinces me that Legato may have some more options coming up.

Anyway, you can perfectly well build a correct version using the supplied tailplane. You just have to cut a triangle from the centre of the part, corresponding to the top of the fuselage section and glue the 2 resulting halves at the correct location on the fuselage sides. Still, If the correct parts exist, I can’t understand why Legato chose not to supply them.

All the other parts, mostly struts, are well defined and will work okay.

Moving on to the decals, these are glossy, well-printed, and don’t look like they will cause any problems.

The kit for series 77 has decals for 77.55 and 77.77 while the other kit has options for four aircraft : 76.51; 176.54; 76.70 and 276.19.

Instructions quote Agama and Humbrol paints.

Again, given the slight differences in subtypes I’d suggest you check your references, and the FMP tome is quite useful here given the fact that it has photos of most of the aircraft for which Legato supplies decals.

Conclusion

All things considered, Legato’s kits, even if not perfect, are certainly high-end products. None of the issues I mentioned in this review are particularly difficult to deal with and the model seems to be well within the skill envelope of the experienced multiwing builder.

As such I’d absolutely recommend them but I’d also recommend that Legato be a bit more careful with the instructions since I feel those should point out the issues I cited above, especially when the artwork and painting instruction drawings are generally correct.

Thanks to Legato for the review samples.