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AML's 1/72 Heinkel He 45

By Chris Banyai-Riepl

History

The Heinkel He 45 was designed as both a light bomber and a long-range reconnaissance plane in the early 1930s. As was the common practice of the times, the He 45 was a very orthodox biplane design, and since there wasn't any real innovations or new technology used, the airframe ended up being very robust and predictable in flight. This led the He45 to a future as a trainer as well, as nothing is better for training new pilots than a very predictable airplane.

By 1936, the He 45 was probably the most-used plane in the Luftwaffe, but its usefulness was just about up as newer, faster monoplanes were taking to the skies. Nevertheless, the He 45 found its way into combat in the Spanish Civil War, where it performed bombing, strafing, and reconnaissance missions in the north. The He 45 did its job admirably and soldiered on until replaced by the high-wing Hs126 monoplane.

The Kit

AML has a great knack for putting out kits with some very well done detailing for short-run kits, and this kit of the He 45 is no exception. Molded in a light gray plastic, the interior detailing is amazingly well done and crisp. Ribbing detail on the fuselage sides, radio face details, seat cushions with padding and creases showing, all done in injection plastic and rivaling resin parts really go a long way to making this kit a nice piece of work. Of course, there's always room for improvement, even in the best of kits, but with the small cockpit openings of the He45, not much else will be seen.

The breakdown of the kit will make some assembly easy and others a bit more difficult. The fuselage and cockpit construction is straightforward, and with the brass instrument panel and the decent injection plastic interior, this part shouldn't take much more time than careful painting and gluing. Once that's done and dry, adding the tail will be the beginning of the difficult part.

The tail has locating holes and pegs, which is a good sign, but there will need to be some cleanup work on the tail pieces to clear some of the flash away from the pegs. Once that's done assembling the tail should be fairly easy, but care will need to betaken to make sure everything lines up evenly. A jig here might help in keeping things straight. Another somewhat difficult area to keep straight will be the landing gear, but that should be easier than the tail assembly, as there's plenty of struts to make sure everything is aligned properly.

Where things get really fun, though, will be with the lower wing. The lower wing is molded in two pieces, a left and a right half, and has locating pegs and holes, just like the tail. Unlike the tail, though, the wings have dihedral, and getting the wings to have the same amount will definitely require a jig of some sort. Alternatively, one could mount the one-piece upper wing on the cabane struts, with the outboard wing struts attached, and then use that to mount the lower wings, but a jig would probably be easier.

Once all this work is done, the rest is downhill. Unless you decide on painting the kit up in Spanish Civil War markings, that is. Not wanting to make things too easy for you, AML has provided five marking choices on their decal sheet, including three from the Spanish Civil War and two Luftwaffe birds. The Luftwaffe options are overall RLM63 and are fairly plain. But after getting this kit built up just right, no one would want to do a plain paint scheme, right? So AML took care of that with theSpanish examples. The first example is simple and like the Luftwaffe examples, being overall RLM63 with a white ace of diamonds card on the tail. The second is a bit wilder, with a base color of RLM63 covered with a random pattern of RLM61. White X's and black circles are on the wings, and the tail has an interesting bird emblem carrying a bucket. But for those truly masochistic modelers, the final Spanish Civil War scheme is the only real option. We're talking about a paint scheme that will guarantee insanity. Starting with the RLM63 base color, over that are small splinter camouflage segments of RLM62 and RLM63, covering the fuselage sides and upper wings. The lower surfaces are in RLM65. The scheme is reminiscent of the SAAB AJ-37 Viggen scheme of the 1970s and 80s, and will be about as difficult. More so, really, since you've got that second wing to worry about. If you're going to opt for this scheme, jig assembly of the wings is going to be essential, as you'll want to leave the upper wing off until everything is painted up.

Conclusion

This kit is an excellent addition to any Luftwaffe collection, even with the difficulties in assembling and painting. When finished, it will definitely turn some heads in the more garish camouflage patterns, but a careful build can be highlighted by the simpler overall gray schemes as well. While this is no weekend slammer, this kit will build up into a beautiful example of a pre-war Luftwaffe biplane.