1/48 Dragon Ju-88A-17

by Rafi Ben-Shahar

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The Ju 88A-17 was a later adaptation of the versatile Schnell Bomber  to the role of torpedo bombers. Other than a pair of torpedoes installed on special PVC racks, this version had its ventral gondola deleted to reduce both drag and weight and included a torpedo control housing unit on the bottom right area outside the cockpit.

Dragon's 1/48 offering of the Ju-88 variants is an excellent platform to perform a conversion of the ubiquitous Ju 88A-4 that still sells at very reasonable prices. The model has many downfalls that are characteristic to Dragon's models and concentrate around the poor fit of sub-assemblies to major components, such as wings to fuselage wings and canopy to cockpit. Nonetheless, with a bit of patience and some putty to conceal the flaws, your model will look authentic even upon close scrutiny.

I added the torpedoes and racks from spares derived from the Ju-188 model and Walter rocket assist pods scavenged from Hasegawa's Arado 234. In addition, I scratch made the control housing unit and belly hatch, covered the missing Lofte sight area and also included the ventral FuB L2 antenna, hydraulic pipes, a life raft cable and invisible threat to mimic antenna wires. The cockpit had its usual share of detailing that included seat belts and photo etched rudder pedals. Future machine gun sights will complement the detailing when ever available.

In all, it was a pleasure to build yet another 88 with the opportunity to practice the "Wellenmuster" wavy lines on the upper surfaces. The markings were derived from improvised decals and templates made for previous 88 models.

Rafi

 

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Photos and text © by Rafi Ben-Shahar