1/48 Special hobby Ju-87A by Martin Gastel

This model represents a Ju 87A-1 of 5.J/88 of the Condor Legion, during wet weather operations from Calamocha, Spain in March of 1938. It is about to be prepared for another sortie against Republican forces retreating across Aragon. 5.J/88 was known as the Jolanthe Kette due to the pig markings on the aircraft’s landing gear pants. The Ju 87 had been nicknamed by Oberleutnant Gűnther Schwarzkopf after the heroin of a popular comedy which revolved around a pig. This comedy was called ‘Krach um Jolanthe’, or ‘Trouble with Jolanthe’. Aircraft 29l2, the subject of this model, was originally flown by Unteroffizier Ernst Bartels and is one of what is believed to be only three Ju 87A’s operated by the Condor Legion (and hence, ‘Kette’, a flight of three aircraft) numbered 29l2, 29l3 and 29l4, although photos exist of an aircraft numbered 29l5. This aircraft remains unexplained according to my references, but could have been a replacement aircraft or one re-numbered for propaganda purposes.

Construction began in the usual manner, with the cockpit. The kit provides a resin cockpit which is quite nicely detailed, but requires that you scratch build the roll bar and machine gun mount. There is no fuselage detail provided aft of the resin cockpit, so I had to scratch build the rear bulkhead from plastic card. Ribs from plastic strip were also added aft of this bulkhead as they would be marginally visible when the model was completed. The roll bar suggested in the kit instructions is very over-simplified so a more accurate one was made using lead wire and plastic rod and strip, with reference to photos of the actual item. The machine gun mount was also scratch built with reference to photos

as the kit instructions for doing so were not at all clear. The canopy provided is vacu-formed and the doors had to be carefully cut and then bent into an open position. I could tell after dry fitting that there was going to be some fit problems with this item so I had to build up the plastic on the vertical surfaces of the fuselage just aft of the windscreen. The kit instructions suggest painting the cockpit 66 Schwartz Grau, but it is far more likely that it was painted RLM 02 Grau. I painted it with Poly Scale acrylics washed with artists oils and dry brushed to bring out the details.

Click on image below to see larger image

Prior to adding the cockpit to the fuselage and joining the halves, I carefully removed the rudder and trim tab for re-positioning. The same treatment was also applied to the elevators. After re-attaching these pieces in deflected positions, I added all of the associated control rods which I made using copper wire. The kit did not provide for the rudder control rods at all, which I found odd as they were external, and rudimentary trim tab control rods are provided. Once the fuselage halves were together I added the horizontal tail surfaces and experienced no problems with fit here, after I added locator holes to the fuselage and pins from plastic rod to the horizontal tail surfaces. The wings proved to be another matter entirely.

The trailing edges of the wings required a great deal of thinning. This is a little unusual considering the elevators are commendably thin. The fit of the wings to fuselage was extremely poor requiring the leading edge of the fillet to be built up with Squadron Green Putty (the wing chord is longer on the wings than on the fuselage join by about one millimeter). The landing gear pants were also significantly narrower than their attachments on the wings so the wing portions had to be carefully sanded flush with the pants. There was no trouble getting the gull dihedral correct for the wings as each upper wing half comes as one piece. The lower halves of the wings comes in three pieces (for a grand total of five pieces). After the wings were assembled there were hefty gaps between the separate pieces so I used Squadron Green Putty and Mr Surfacer 500 to fill these areas. Super glue would have been a better choice as the resultant assembly was delicate and the putty prone to separate and crack.

I wanted to build this aircraft as operated during muddy field conditions so the lower portion of the landing gear pants had to be removed and the walls thinned considerably with a file, number 11 X-Acto blade, and 400 grit wet or dry sand paper.

The landing gear was then scratch built with plastic card and brass tube, and using the resin wheels thoughtfully supplied with the kit (wheels also come moulded onto the pants themselves). After the completed landing gear/pants assemblies were added to the wings I added the flaps and ailerons. The flaps were placed in a lowered position as this seems to have been the norm for Ju 87A’s on the ground. Once again, control rods for the flaps and ailerons were added from copper wire.

Click on image below to see larger image

The model was painted with Poly Scale acrylics sprayed through my Aztek A470. I used the grey general purpose tip as I seem to get better results with it than the black acrylic tip. Due to the large amount of filler required for this model, a primer coat was essential. I prefer to let the paint to dry for 48 hours between coats even though Poly Scale painted surfaces can be handled shortly after spraying. It also sands beautifully showing no discolouration so minor imperfections can be lightly sanded out. All panel

lines were post-shaded immediately after applying the basic colour. This was accomplished by emptying the excess paint from the colour cup and filling it with thinner (I use distilled water), followed by dipping my stir stick in black paint and stirring it into the colour cup. This gives a very dilute, darker shade of the original colour. After blowing out some of this mixture to ensure all excess paint in the nozzle is gone, I spray the panel lines at 7 PSI. The mix is less than 10 % paint so is very transparent and will require a few passes to get the desired effect. I find the control of this method easier than pre-shading, especially for multi-colour schemes.

Click on image below to see larger image

After painting was complete, Future was added as the gloss coat followed by the decals 48 hours later. For the most part, I used the kit decals which are very thin. Their adhesive, however, is very strong requiring that the decal be positioned almost perfectly prior to application as it is very difficult to move once on the model, even with the application of a great deal of water. Wait 30 seconds and the decal is more or less permanent. The pig decals were made for me by Jeff Dick, a friend of mine, on his trusty ALPS printer. While I have no photos of 29l2 wearing this marking, I assumed that at some time all three Ju 87A’s did due to the name of the flight. My model depicts this particular Ju 87A relatively early in its deployment when, according to my references, Spring rains forced the removal of the lower portion of the landing gear pants. There is a well known photo of a one of the

Jolanthe Kette with the pig marking flying without the lower pants, although I can’t make out the aircraft number. I’m sure that someone out there who knows a lot more about the Spanish Civil War can point out the error of my ways. At any rate, I like the look of this unit marking better. After the decals had dried, I applied another coat of Future over them and then used a wash of grey artist oils to colour the panel lines. As a side note, these panel lines were very fine and in some places had to be re-scribed. The final flat coat of Poly Scale flat was applied after allowing the Future to cure for a few days.

Click on images below to see larger images

At this stage attention was turned towards the canopy. The framework was added inside and out using pre-painted (by me) and then cut clear decal film. I used a very sharp #11 blade for this and pretty much eye balled the width. I find this method easier than masking the canopy if the framework does not have too many complex curves. It can give very you sharp edges and allows you to quite easily do the interior as well. This is important if the canopy is to be positioned open as painting the interior colour on the exterior of the canopy just does not cut it when viewing the framework from inside the cockpit. Some minor imperfections can be seen in the extreme close-ups of Steve’s photos, but these can be easily fixed with careful scraping and sanding followed by touching up with paint. I added the antenna posts, the hatch latches and the wiring which ran from the antenna to the radio to the canopy after all the decal framework had been applied. I still had some difficulty making the canopy fit to the fuselage so was forced to do some trimming to the windscreen and which then forced me to re-do some of the decal framework. I attached it using a wood workers white glue, which dries clear and waterproof. The antenna wires were made from clear nylon thread and were attached with super glue. The wire was then painted steel with a heavy wash of bronze. The insulators are just tiny blobs of white glue painted white.

Finally, all of the fiddly bits were added such as the foot steps and pitot tube (or is it a venturi tube?). The pitot requires a little bit of scratch building which should be done with reference to photos of the actual aircraft as the kit instructions are incorrect. The wing tip navigation lights were made from clear stretched sprue painted with Tamiya clear red and green acrylic paint.

Weathering was accomplished using pastels, with the exception of the paint chipping which was done with Prismacolour silver pencil. This was actually done before the first gloss coat so that it would be toned down by the final flat coat. Weathering was kept fairly subtle, just some dust and exhaust stains and light chipping.

As a final ‘human’ touch, a canopy cleaning cloth made from aluminum foil was draped over the rear of the canopy as it was commonplace for ground crews to clean canopies before a mission. This addition also enabled a non-repairable defect in the canopy to be covered as getting a replacement part turned out to be problematic. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.

The hydraulic bomb trolley and SC250 bomb are Dragon accessories. The SC250 was modified by the addition of the harness for the Stuka’s swing arm release, made with tape, plastic rod and tiny discs punched out of aluminum foil using my Waldren punch and die set, and the locking ring from copper wire. The braces for the stabilization fins were made from stretched sprue. The only modification to the trolley was the addition of a bomb

securing chain and some filling with putty and Mr. Surfacer. The kit instructions suggest that the trolley should be painted field grey and I could not find any reference material that suggested otherwise, so I painted it with Tamiya field grey. The SC250 could be field grey, sky blue or aluminum according to the Warbirds Resource Group site http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/sc250.html so I painted it a slightly different shade of field grey. All stencils were done by hand, with the exception of the yellow stripe, which was cut from a yellow decal.

Click on images below to see larger images

While this is a fairly difficult model to build and not to be attempted as a first kit, the end result can be quite a pleasing representation of the aircraft so is well worth the effort, at least in my mind. Where else are you going to find a 1/48 Ju 87 ‘Anton’?

1/48 Special Hobby Ju 87A-1