1/72 Airfix Fiat G.91R

Gallery Article by Orlando Sucre Rosales on Apr 20 2010

 

Hello, fellow modelers and readers!

This is the sixth of my series of articles related to old Airfix series 1 kits. The Fiat G.91R, also known as "Gina," is a single-engined light weight fighter that looks like a scaled down version of the F-86D Sabre Dog. It has been in service in Italy, Germany and Portugal in the 60's and the 70's. Aeritalia later developed a more powerful twin-engined version, the G.91T. Airfix's G.91 is similar in concept and quality to other series 1 kits, with minimum parts count, basic detail and some mistakes. The most noticeable shape mistake in this kit is the canopy framing and perhaps the canopy shape itself. The kit had decals only for the Italian 5-259.

The subject of this article is the third Airfix G.91 I've built. I built the previous two when I was a teenager, these had the "bag+instructions sheet" packaging of the oldest series 1 kits. The third was also bought when I was in my teens, but it had the blister-style packaging of the 70's and better quality decals. I don't remember how long I began constructing this kit, I can only be sure that it was after the purchase of my first airbrush sixteen years ago. The construction went almost straightforward, however I had problems with the joint of the nose cone to the fuselage because at this point the fuselage is almost 0,5 mm wider than the nose cone. Other problems arose from the use of super glue as a filler without having the accelerator.

Well, I assembled the model following the kit’s instructions, but I left the undercarriage legs, wheels and doors for the final stage. In the first instance I painted the model according to the instructions, using Humbrol replacements for the Airfix paint codes. However, the Humbrol replacement for Airfix's G10, Hu 47 sky blue, darkened a lot after drying a couple of weeks. As I didn't like the finish, I decided to strip the paint using oven cleaner. However, the gloss paint didn't want to completely quit the model, so I left the model partially stripped for years...

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Meanwhile I began to look for aircraft photographs at the Internet. One of the first photographs I found was of 5-257, another Italian Fiat G.91R, probably of the same group of 5-259. It was what impulsed me to rescue and finish my by then abandoned Gina model. I found that the canopy was a little scratched so I lightly sanded it and later I polished it with Model Wax, as always. Luckily, I discovered that this product helped to loosen the paint of the canopy frames. With another application of oven cleaner in some places and with the help of toothpicks and sanding paper I could finally remove all the paint. 

Now it was time to use my photo as a reference for accurate painting. I used Hu122 FS35622 Pale blue for the undersurfaces, and NATO colors Hu 163 Dark green and Hu 165 Sea Grey medium for the camouflage, which was painted using “soft masks.” I added a scratchbuilt pitot tube and painted it red. I also couldn't resist to paint the orange band that can be seen at the centre of the underwing drop tanks on the photo of 5-257, so I mixed Hu 82 Orange lining and Hu 154 Insignia yellow to match the orange of the photograph. After the basic painting was done, I realised that during the strip-paint process many raised lines were reduced to a point that the paint application made them disappear, so I rescribed some of them. Later I airbrushed two coats of gloss acrylic clear and then I applied the decals and a coat of satin acrylic clear. 

Later I masked and painted the antiglare panel over the nose with matt black, the interior of the undercarriage doors, the undercarriage legs and the wheel hubs with flat aluminum, and the tires with Xtracolor X505 Tire Black, and assembled the undercarriage. The final step was painting the four forward-fuselage cannons and the wing-tip and tail navigation lights, and removing the canopy masks. I didn't weather this model because I wanted a factory-fresh look more than the weather-beaten (perhaps abandoned) look of the aircraft of my photograph. My model didn't deserve to be "abandoned" twice!

Thanks for watching and reading. Greetings from Caracas, Venezuela.

Orlando Sucre Rosales

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Photos and text © by Orlando Sucre Rosales