The
Heinkel He111Z ‘Zwilling’ (German for twin), was developed as a super heavy
military tow aircraft for the Messerschmitt Me 321 “Gigant” which was
capable of carrying 20 tons of Cargo or 200 fully equipped combat troops.
Production of the Me 321 was hampered due to the shortage of suitable tow
aircraft. Test were carried out that saw three to four Messerschmitt Bf110
joined together to make one giant aircraft, Unfortunately this design was
ultimately scrapped due the problems to synchronize the engines on each of the
Bf110’s, which caused many accidents. Ernst Heinkel proposed a design to the
Luftwaffe, which would join two of his He111H-6 bombers together. At least 12
He111Z’s were produced for towing duties. There were plans for a further two
variants, long range bomber and long range reconnaissance design,
these never saw actual production.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The
jammed packed box with 288 parts on 36 medium gray and clear sprues are packed
into Hasegawa’s normal style top loader box, with beautiful box art done by
one of the worlds best aviation artists, Koike Shigeo from Japan. http://www.hlj.com/product/HSG00995
The
kit contains newly tooled parts for the center wing and engines. Also included
in the box are drop tanks, early and late style cockpit glazing and 3 types of
exhaust pipes. Some of these items are not required, but surely be nice
additions to anyone’s spares box.
The
kits detail is crisp and nicely done for a 72nd scaled kit. The
landing gear parts and areas are nicely represented. The only down side to the
kits details are the panel lines are represented very deep for this scale, but
the newly tooled center wing sections panel lines are a lot fine and crisper.
Control surfaces are molded into place, but with careful surgery could be moved
into different positions The transparent parts are crystal clear and will
require a tedious task of masking before painting the parts.
The
dry fit of the parts shows an excellent fit and hopefully the modeler will not
require any filler during the build process. There are no signs of sink marks or
flash present on any of the sprues. There is couple of locations where injection
pin marks are close to part details,
but with a careful clean up these will be easily taken care of.
Two
schemes are included for options for markings "DG+DZ" in winter
distemper camouflage and "TH+ZI" in summer camouflage. The decal sheet
print registry is excellent, with a crisp white on the codes and national
markings. The yellow for the RLM 04 matches up to RLM colour chips. Some of the
carrier film is oversized and will require a small amount of trimming before
applying them.
This
kit should provide an easy build for the average modeler. Overall general shape
of the kit is excellent. This kit is under limited issue, so grab one if you
would like to add one of the Luftwaffe oddities to your collection. The
inclusion of an Italeri or Testers 1/72 Messerschmitt Me321 “Gigant” would
result in an impressive pair and addition to anyone’s display cabinet.
I
would like to thank the team at HobbyLink Japan (www.hlj.com)
for supplying this review sample.
Dave
Johnson
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