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Trumpeter 1/32 Messerschmitt Bf 109E-3

By Chris Banyai-Riepl

Overview

There comes a point in every kit manufacturer's lifespan where they think they are established and mainstream. However, we all know that is not true until that one pivotal event happens: the manufacture of a scale model kit of the Messerschmitt Bf 109. It used to be that in order to be considered in the big game, that 109 had to be done in 1/48, but lately, we have extended that to allow 1/32 as well. So, while Trumpeter dallied with the big scale Bf 109, it is not until this new release of the 1/32 Bf 109E-3 that they can present a model for entry into the pros.

One might ask why it is that this one subject holds so much power in the modeling world. Well, quite simply, it comes down to ratios. See, there are more Bf 109 experts out there than the total production of Bf 109s. In fact, I would not be the least bit surprised if there were two experts for every single Bf 109 built. It takes some serious intestinal fortitude to brave this gauntlet, so let's see how Trumpeter has done.

Qualifications

First off, though, I must assert myself as a Bf 109 expert. Sure, I could state that I am the author of the Warpaint Special #2 on the Messerschmitt Bf 109, but really, anyone can write (and illustrate!) a book. No, my true value in Bf 109 knowledge comes from the fact that I dated a woman whose grandfather shook the hand of the woodcutter who chopped the tree that provided the wood that was shaped into the former upon which the original stabilizer fairing was hammered out upon. So with my credentials out of the way, let's dive into the details of this kit.

First Impressions

On opening the box, the first impression is one of overall high quality, from the petite recessed panel lines and rivet detail to a complete engine to a detailed radio stack that is visible only through the open radio access hatch on the fuselage side. Options and accessories include three types of spinners, a belly tank and a bomb, complete detailed wing and fuselage guns, separate control surfaces, rubber tires, and photoetch. The decal sheets cover both German and Swiss aircraft, with a good selection of stenciling as well. Sitting in the box, this kit looks to be quite complete, and priced around $60, quite affordable as well.

The Details

So, let's break it down and look at the details more closely. Starting with the cockpit, this is quite good out of the box. The assembly includes the cowl guns and their ammo drawers, which fit on the front of the cockpit floor. The instrument panel is very nicely done, with recessed details and a decal sheet. I would recommend using a punch to pop out the instrument dial faces, and painting the rest. Going that route will yield a very nice instrument panel. The rudder pedals are provided in both photoetch and plastic, so you can choose which one you are more comfortable with. Both have the straps provided and look accurate. Between the rudder pedals is the fuselage cannon cover, and here we run into a slight snag. The Bf 109E did not fly with a fuselage cannon, so this assembly should not be here. This is a simple enough fix, just leave it off and fill the holes. What should go there is an electrical conduit, basically a round pipe. Bend some sprue to shape and glue it in place and you're done with that.

The seat is really a gem, one of the best I've seen in a model kit. The base structure starts out with two side arms and front and rear pipes. The side arms include relief detail as well as the adjustment arm. The seat itself has beautiful seatback detailing, down to the hole for the seat belts to fit through. The seat belts are photoetch, including the framing around the aforementioned hole in the seatback. The completed seat then sits on the frame, which sits on the cockpit floor. Next to the seat is another adjustment lever, plus a three-piece trim wheel. Toss in the fuselage guns (separate barrels that are hollowed out, plus nicely detailed receivers) and you have a very nice cockpit.

But wait, there's more! While that makes up the main tub, there are also separate sidewall inserts that fit into the fuselage halves. The starboard side includes a photoetch basket for the oxygen regulator, should you wish to use that instead of the plastic part. Extending off the rear bulkhead is a flat shelf, upon which sit two bottles (I believe these are compressed air tanks for the MG 17 machine guns, at least according to the Aero Detail book). Sitting under that is the fuel tank, which sits onto the one-piece lower wing. Behind that in the fuselage is a full radio deck made up of no less than 28(!) pieces. Toss in a fuselage side breaker box and you have a highly detailed rear fuselage compartment, with just a small square opening through which it would be visible. Yes, the radio access hatch is separate, and has a small flange around it along with the holes for securing it.

Now, one of the biggest problems for plastic kit manufacturers is getting the parts out of the molds. This is done with ejector pins, which push the formed plastic out of the mold. The results of these ejector pins are seen on the inside of fuselage halves in the form of round recesses. For something like this, where the rear fuselage is framed up with interior structure, these round dimples can be very challenging to fix, as it is tough to get sandpaper in between the raised structure. But on this kit, you do not have to worry about that, because there are no ejector pin marks at all on the rear fuselage. That's right, none. A very close examination of the kit seems to show that Trumpeter put those ejectors on the flat seam edges instead, where modelers tend to sand anyway to get a good fit. Kudos to Trumpeter for thinking this one through, and allowing all of that extra detail they provided to be seen without any tough filler work.

So now we glue the fuselage together, right? Nope! This kit comes with a complete engine as well, and it looks really good too. There is a basic engine block made up of several parts, upon which goes all sorts of separately molded wiring and plumbing. The forward cowl is separate, so this can be displayed out in the open, too. The exhaust stubs are all separate, and hollow. A minor point, though, the kit has the exhaust end flat to the aft end, and it should be slanted a bit. A swipe of a sanding stick cures that, and frankly, I'd rather have the exhausts hollow and needing this bit of adjustment, than the other way around. So, with all of that done, yes, you can glue the fuselage together.

Now, on to the wings. As noted earlier, the wing is separated into two upper wing halves and a one-piece lower wing. The ailerons and flaps are separate, as are the slats. The kit comes with complete 20mm MG FF guns for the wings, again with hollow barrels. These guns are made up from a three piece drum, two piece receiver, two piece coil, and the one piece barrel. I would be tempted to replace the gun barrels with aftermarket ones, simply because the gun model is nice enough to warrant display outside of the kit. The kit comes with separate hatches for the lower wing bulges, molded in clear should you want to display them that way.

While we're looking at the underside, let's check out the wheel wells and landing gear. On first glance, I thought that Trumpeter really cut corners here, as everything is smooth. Then I looked at the instructions, and the kit got another positive notch. The fabric insert for the wheel well is provided in photoetch, complete with stitching detail. For the strut area, another piece of photoetch provides all the rivet detail. This is a great way to make sure all of that detail is sharp around the curve, and should look really good once in place. The landing gear comes in two pieces, with the main retraction knuckle fitting into the main strut. Separate oleo scissors and photoetch bands to hold the brake line complete the strut assembly. The wheels are two-part, with a separate vinyl tire, and look very nice.

For underwing stores, the kit comes with two styles of racks: one for the bomb and one for the drop tank. The bomb rack has separate sway braces and a decent bomb. The drop tank is more detailed, with separate attachment points on the drop tank, a photoetch band, and separate attachment pipes fitting into the one-piece rack. The completed assembly is really quite good. The remaining under wing details include separate radiator flaps, individual aileron mass balances, and a separate pitot tube. While on the subject of control surfaces, the stabilizers are split into upper and lower halves, with separate elevators. The bracing struts fit into recessed holes in both the stabilizers and fuselage, resulting in a smooth fit. The rudder comes with separate cables and control horns, which are surprisingly petite.

Moving on to the final details, the canopy has windscreen handles, canopy levers, and various other details that will result in a nice looking hood. The supercharger intake and the small scoop on the right side are separate pieces that fit into indentations on the fuselage. The oil cooler intake has photoetch inserts (just like the wing radiators), and has a really good fit into the separate chin insert, which, in turn also fits snugly into the fuselage. For the fuselage antenna, this kit comes with a small photoetch piece for the rear antenna mount, and a separate piece for the mid-fuselage ceramic attachment.

Marking Options

For the decals, these are well printed overall, with good color density and good registration. There are three options on the sheet: two Luftwaffe and one Swiss. The first Luftwaffe option is Joseph Priller's Yellow 1 from 6./JG 51 in the autumn of 1940. The second Luftwaffe option is Heinz Bär's White 13 from 1./JG 51 in September 1940. The Swiss example is J-371, and is finished in the high visibility red and white scheme. The decals provide all of this scheme in decal form, which means you will be covering all of the stabilizers, most of the wings, and most of the fuselage with giant decals. It might be better to just trim out the serial number and paint the rest of this one, as it's large stripes and big white crosses, mainly.

Accuracy

All right, now with the basic overview out of the way, what everyone wants to know is how does this model stack up, accuracy-wise. I just did a couple of quick measurements, that of the wingspan and that of the fuselage width. I scaled those results up to full size and then compared those to the actual dimensions (taken from original Messerschmitt drawings), and the results were, well, you be the judge. Wingspan should be 9900mm, and the Trumpeter kit scales up to about 9906mm. Fuselage width should be 860mm, and the Trumpeter kit scales up to about 865mm. The difference, when scaled down to 1/32, is about the thickness of a couple pieces of paper. In my book, this kit is accurate dimensionally.

So, does that mean this is the perfect Bf 109E kit out there, the one that we've all been hoping for? Unfortunately, no. While it is dimensionally accurate, and the overall accuracy is high, there are some problem areas. The most noticeable is the chin oil cooler scoop. This is way too deep, and almost looks like that from a Bf 109F (perhaps Trumpeter got these two parts mixed up?). Given the engineering of the kit, though, fixing this should not be too difficult. Since this scoop is a separate piece, taking a slice out of the sides and reshaping the front end will probably fix this one in half an hour.

The second noticeable mistake is with the small scoop next to the starter crank opening. This should be a small rectangular vent, and the kit has it as a large semicircular vent. Perhaps Trumpeter was looking at the large scoop on a Bf 109B/C/D and confused the two, I don't know.  As this fits into a recess, this will be a bit more challenging, as you will need to fill in that recess, as well as make the new scoop. Still, with some plastic card and a bit of time, this shouldn't be too much trouble.

The third thing that stuck out to me was the underwing bulges for the MG FF cannons. These are too deep and have a slightly wrong shape in planform. While fixing the planform shape would be challenging, the depth is fairly simple: just sand them down a bit. There appears to be enough plastic there to reshape those without having to backfill. To change the planform shape, if you are careful and mask off the outline, it would be possible to build up the extra shape with epoxy and sand to shape. Whether that much work is worth the result I'll leave up to you.

Those three areas are the biggest and most visible shape errors on this kit, and realistically, they're all easily fixed. What makes them so frustrating is that Trumpeter has done such an incredible job elsewhere in this kit, such as the highly detailed guns and the excellent small details like the ceramic fuselage insulator and seat details. Still, they are fairly easy fixes, and given the dimensionally accurate shape, this puts the Trumpeter kit at the top of the list of 1/32 Bf 109Es.

Conclusion

There is only so much you can do in an inbox review, as much resides in the actual build, but from where I sit, this is a very good kit overall. It captures the look of the Bf 109E, it is highly detailed, and the minor test fitting I did shows that it should go together quickly and easily. While it is not perfect, the problems are not tough to fix, and the benefits strongly outweigh those problems. This has me looking forward to future 109 releases from Trumpeter (I would love to see both a 109F and a 109B/C/D). My thanks to Stevens International for the review sample.

References

Beaman, John R. & Jerry L. Campbell. Messerschmitt Bf 109 in Action. Squadron Signal, 1980.

Cross, Roy & Gerald Scarborough. Messerschmitt Bf 109 Versions B-E. Patrick Stephens/Airfix, 1972.

Messerschmitt Bf 109B-E. Model Art Ltd., 1991.

Michulec, Robert. Messerschmitt Me 109 Part 5. AJ Press, 1998.

Michulec, Robert. Messerschmitt Bf 109. AJ Press, 1998.

Radinger, Willy & Walter Schick. Messerschmitt Bf 109A-E. Schiffer, 1999.

Shiwaku, Masatsugu, Ed. Messerschmitt Bf 109E, Aero Detail 1. Model Graphix, 1989.

Stapfer, Hans-Heiri. Walk Around Messerschmitt Bf 109E. Squadron Signal, 2004.

Sumichrast, Peter & Jozef And'al. Messerschmitt Bf 109B, D, a E slovenskych pilotov 1942-1944. HT Model, 2003.