”Single-Seater with Fiat A.80
RC.41 Engine”
The Ba.65’s combat career lasted
from 1936 to 1941 and it was utilised in the Spanish Civil War, the Anglo-Iraqi
War of 1941 and in
North Africa
up to the beginning of 1941. The Ba.65 seemed to belong to a generation of
Italian aircraft that came into their own in the late 1930’s and proved
effective over Spain but quickly fell into obsolescence by the outset of WWII.
Collectively they are fine looking aircraft with great camouflage, interesting
markings and a great deal of character.
Special Hobby’s current packaging
is straight forward and simple with attractive artwork on the lid and an
interesting selection of mixed media parts within the box. You receive four
sprues of plastic parts, one bag full of resin parts, a substantial PE fret and
a set of decals along with twelve pages of loose leaf instructions.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The plastic parts feature finely
engraved panel lines on the fuselage, wings and horizontal stabilisers. These
large areas are for the most part cleanly cast but there is still some
coarseness here and there with flash and occasional small bumps in the plastic.
These flaws shouldn’t present any challenge to remove. The cockpit
sub-assembly begins at the firewall and continues to just aft of the fuel tank.
Special Hobby has included some great detail here taking up much of the PE and
including the resin bomb load. It’s a shame it will be fully enclosed but this
area is still visible through the glazing aft of the head rest and on the
underside of the fuselage aft of the bomb bay. Fortunately the clear parts which
allow these views are cleanly cast. The casting and level of detail of
many of the small parts is coarse and will require clean up and the area as a
whole certainly deserves a little enhancement and further detailing. Note: after
photographing the contents I realised a few parts had come loose from the sprues
(in case it appears parts are missing).
As relayed above the PE fret is
mostly utilised within the fuselage and this includes several parts to assemble
the internal bomb racks (see photo of instructions). This has the makings of a
fine and intricate structure. Further supplementary PE detail for the cockpit
mitigates somewhat the chunkiness of the smaller plastic parts. All up it’s a
decent quantity of metal.
The bag of resin contains nearly all
the parts that comprise the engine and cowlings. The radial engine is broken
down into crank case and individual cylinders all with fine and regular
detailing. The prop boss is very well done and the prop blades are clean,
straight and delicate in section. Bombs show a very regular form but fins, as
cast, will be too thick for some. The one piece cowling is very cleanly done,
has regular shaped and consistently patterned bulging and ends at the cowl flaps
with some fine edges that can of course be thinned even further. The exhausts
have been cast hollow ended with very thin walls and look absolutely great. The
quality of the resin in this kit is excellent.
Decals are by Dead Design and are
printed by AVIPRINT.CZ. The colours seem fine and the printing and register is
good. Markings are provided for three aircraft of 159a Squadriglia, 12 Grupo, 50
Stormo Assalto based in
North Africa
in 1940.
Instructions are comprised of 12
loose leaf pages in small booklet form. The diagrams are clear and include Gunze
Colour call outs. The instructions also mention that camouflage schemes (and the
full instructions) are available in colour through Special Hobby’s website: www.cmkkits.com.
In conclusion this is another
limited run gem from Special Hobby and is thoroughly recommended. The aircraft
itself is so unusual and ungainly in appearance that I think it will look great
in plastic next to all the glamour planes out there. This model is shown in
great depth in at least one online build up.
The kit can be purchased here:
http://www.hlj.com/product/SPH48053
My thanks to HobbyLink
Japan
(http://www..hlj.com/)
for providing this review sample. Nick
Moore
Click on
images below to see larger images
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