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Miniwing 1/144 Blohm & Voss Bv138

By Terry Patrick

The Bv138 first flew in July 1937, it was designed as a long range reconnaissance flying boat. However the first two prototypes were only marginally successful. Consequently the type was totally redesigned; the gull wings were replaced with the wing mounted directly on top of the fuselage, the vertical tail surfaces and the tail booms were increased in side area and the hull and the hull planing surfaces were completely redesigned. BV 138s were mainly operated from Norway and mainly used to observe and attack the Allied North Atlantic shipping convoys. BV138s are known to have shot down a Blenheim and a Catalina in separate actions. A BV138 is known to have survived a 90 minute attack by British carrier borne aircraft.

That's a very brief history of the BV138, turning now to myself, I have built 1/144^th scale models for the past 50 plus years. As any modeller will know there was very little around in 1/144^th scale 50 years ago, and this is why I have nearly always built my own as we now call them ‘scratch built' models. I build mainly in wood but I have done a number of Don Schmenk's basic but very nice one piece castings. I have also moulded and cast a few basic models myself, but I haven't built a full blown commercially available kit for some 10 to 15 years.

With this history you may wonder how I came to get to review the BV138. Well I presume I was asked because several months ago I presented a short article to Internet Modeler that described my collection of Meteors. I agreed to the build because I was interested to see how I would get on building a kit. Before I start I feel I should point out that I am not a detail fanatic, I don't believe that a good 1/144^th scale model needs every panel line and rivet portraying. My goal is always accurate outline and cross section, I find painting and finishing the most difficult operations.

Turning to the model and looking at the castings I thought they looked nice and crisp with little flash, I found only two small air bubbles on the whole model and these were easily filled. I liked the look of the panel lines, but I did think that the ailerons, elevators and rudders could have been made to stand out a little more than the panel lines.

The detail etched on the upper surface of the wing was not quite in register with that on the under side, however as you can't look at both sides at the same time I don't suppose that matters too much. Some dry assembling showed that the centre engine underside had to be shaved down a little to get a good ‘sit', I also found that cord of the wing was slightly shorter than the fuselage seat that it was supposed to sit on, I choose to sit the wing fully forward and to re-profile the area at the back. I also adjusted the shape of the rear of the fuselage just in front of the lower gun turret, this was to ensure that I had a good fit, and that the joint would not show when I attached the wing to the fuselage. The only other re-profiling that I did was to improve the V of the wing floats, I felt they should be deeper and have a more defined chine.

I also noticed that the booms fitted very ‘loosely' on the wing seats, another problem here was that the profile on the sides of the booms did not line up with the profile of the top surface of the wings. This was not visible after filling and rubbing down of the joints. I had some doubts about the dorsal and ventral spines on the tail booms, they looked too heavily defined, and they made the booms themselves look to deep. I could see no evidence of them on the reference photographs that I have. Obviously the kit designer believed them to be there so I have retained them but I have reduced the depth of them.

I didn't immediately realise that the tail booms are handed, in fact they have a slight indentation to assist with locating the tail plane (horizontal Stabiliser) when it is glued between the tail fins. Because of the nature of super glue, I find it gets everywhere, when assembling the model I clamped two bulldog clips to the tail booms directly beneath where the tailplane was to be located. I found that this allowed me to drop the tailplane into position in one go without the need to move it about to find the correct position. I also think that the tailplane looks ‘flat', it doesn't have a proper aerofoil cross-section.

I found the turrets difficult to cut out and to locate, I also found that they were prone to fall into the assembled fuselage. When cutting them out I stuffed them tightly with soft tissue paper, that made them slightly easier to see and to work on, I also stuck some masking tape on them before I attempted to glue them in position this stopped them from falling in to the fuselage.

Now I come to my only real criticism of the kit, I did not like the propellers, they were difficult to assemble, some of the locating pins had broken off the blades, one blade had been lost possibly by me, and it was impossible to get a scale thickness on the blades and still retain any strength in them. Yes, I know I should have assembled a four blade unit for the centre engine that will have to be done at a latter stage now. In fact the real aircraft also had wider paddle type blades on the outer engines. The kit is crying out for white metal props.

When I painted it I sprayed the underside, masked off the blue, sprayed the lighter green, masked that off then sprayed the dark green. The transfers went on well, and I believe I now have an attractive Blohm Und Voss Bv-138.

I really enjoyed building this model, I like the look of the finished model and if I had carved it, it would have taken many more hours.

Thank you Matt Bittner and Miniwing for giving me the opportunity to build it.