Dragon Fw-190A-8/R8 1/48th Master Series, Oscar Boesch By Mike Whye

The Kit

Often when you buy a kit of a popular series of aircraft, such as the Fw-190, you expect to be able to build or create one of several aircraft, using a host of decals and paint schemes offered by the manufacturer. Well, that’s not going to happen when you buy Dragon’s 1/48 Fw-190A-8/R8, kit #5549. There’s only one version you’re going to get and that’s the one flown by Luftwaffe pilot Feldwebel Oscar Boesch with IV/JG3 “Udet” in December 1944. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; in fact, I am saying it’s a good kit for the reasons that follow. It’s also one of Dragon’s Master Series of kits which have more features than the usual injected molded kit.

First off, when you open the box, you’ll find everything in separate plastic bags; only one had two sprues in it, the rest were individually bagged. The decals were in their own bag and the photo-etch sprues too. It’s easy to see that a lot of care if put into this kit.

The same goes with the pieces. Looking over the seven sprues of injected styrene plastic--both medium gray and clear--one cannot see any unwarranted marks on the pieces which are also crispy made. The recessed panel lines are delicate which is great. The clear pieces are as good as they get. No mold flow lines are seen in the pieces, a pet peeve of mine with some other kits I’ve encountered over the years. You get a lot of great detail in just the styrene pieces, particularly the main gear wheel well and side instrument panels. You also get a bonus….what looks like a 40mm underwing cannon. Although it’s not used in this kit, you might be able to apply it to something else in the future. All control surfaces are molded in place.

The kit has three frets of photo-etch, two in stainless steel and one in brass. Don’t ask me why they’re made of different materials but that’s they way they are. One stainless steel fret has detailed seatbelts and the upper rear canopy deck. The other has the front instrument panels, antennas and headrests. The brass photo-etch fret, made of heavier gauge metal, has the armor plating to fit alongside the cockpit and armored side canopy window frames… pieces of thin clear plastic are included for those windows as well.

The decals, which look well made, have the markings for Boesch’s aircraft--all the way from the national markings to the stencils. I’d like to say the decals encompass all the markings but I don’t see any swastikas anywhere, the usual tail markings on German aircraft during WWII. However, according to a painting I found on Oscar Boesch's Fw-190 A-8/R-8, his Fw-190 did have tail swastikas so you’re going to have to raid your stash for these. Because the image on that website is small, I cannot tell if the swastika is simply all black or has a thin white outline around it so some further research will be needed. While I understand that box top cannot depict swastikas because of the laws of some countries, I cannot understand why the swastikas cannot be included on the decal sheet in the box. Sigh…….

The two-tone instructions are straight forward and easy to follow. Items to be painted are noted clearly and the color chart refers to GSi acrylic, Gsi enamel and Testors Model Master paints. Few options are allowed in this kit; the only one I see, besides positioning the canopy open or closed, is you can use a bomb rack and bomb or an external fuel tank and its rack. You are given a choice of white or black stencils in some areas although I’m not sure why since you’re presented with only one paint scheme. As I wrote earlier, this kit depicts the aircraft flown by Boesch in late 1944 and, as for its paint scheme, well, that’s where Dragon falls short. If you look at the schematics on the instruction sheet, it looks like the kit simply had a light blue underside and dark gray sides and another dark gray on the wings plus a yellow lower engine cowling panel. However, the art on the box top….the only color scheme seen in this kit….shows just the left side of the aircraft. True, it shows the blue lower wing, the yellow cowling panel, the light gray fuselage with dark gray mottling and dark gray fuselage spine, but I have absolutely no idea what the color scheme is on top of the wings and horizontal stabilizers….are they all one color or are they two-tone? While the overall kit is super, I think Dragon could have done better with informing modelers just how Boesche’s aircraft was painted.

Conclusion

The kit retails for $37 although I have seen it for less at various hobby stores and online outlets. As long as you know you will need to research the paint scheme for Boesch’s aircraft to render a model of it, and acquire some swastikas for the vertical stabilizer, this is a great kit to have in your collection.

Now for a few words about Oscar Boesch. According to the box top and War Wolf by Robert Bailey, Boesch was born in Austria and loved flying sailplanes. He joined the Luftwaffe in 1942 and began flying Fw-190s. In 120 combat missions, he had to bail out four times and crash landed damaged Focke-Wulfs four more. However, he was credited with shooting down 18 allied aircraft: a P-51, Spitfire, four Il-2s, two Yak-9s, two LaGG-3s, six B-17s and two B-24s. After participating in the Battle of the Bulge, he flew in the Battle of Berlin in April 1945 where he collided with a Yak-9. Although captured after bailing out behind Soviet lines, he escaped his captors and walked about 650 miles to Austria.

In 1951, Boesch immigrated to Canada with his wife and son and nowadays is known for his performances in sailplanes at air shows. He also performed in the movie “Silent Sky,” a 1977 IMAX movie about sailplanes.