Minicraft

1/144 Heinkel He-111H

Kit Number: 14605

Reviewed by  Jim Pearsall, IPMS# 2209

MSRP: $12.99 Website: www.minicraftmodels.com The Aircraft When the Heinkel 111 first flew in 1935 it was a high speed bomber. Of course events overtook this, and in 1944 the 111 was out of production. Nevertheless, it was a real workhorse for the Luftwaffe, early on as the premier strategic bomber during the Battle of Britain, a torpedo bomber during the Battle of the Atlantic, and later as a transport. If you can get a DVD of "Enemy at the Gates", there's a great scene where the actors move past a crashed Heinkel. Also, there are some great air-to-air shots in "Battle of Britain", even if those WERE CASA 2.111s. The 111 was also very recognizable, with the huge greenhouse cockpit area and elliptical wing. The Kit The kit is 4 sprues in light gray plastic, with one nice transparent clear sprue. The assembly instructions are one page of the 5 page instruction book, which is 8 ½ X 11. Markings take up 2 pages, the introduction is 1 page, the decal instructions take up 1 page, and there's a blank page at the back. The kit also includes torpedoes for the Battle of the Atlantic. Assembly is pretty simple. Two wings, 4 parts, left top, left bottom, right top, right bottom. One tricky part is that the two lower clear areas are a single part which is put into a fuselage half and trapped. This makes seam clean up and painting more of a chore, but the fit for this clear part is very good. There's also a minimal interior included. For my model I used the white metal interior from Matador Models. This addition also takes care of the large empty space under the upper gunner's position. One of the pictures is a side-by side comparison between the kit cockpit and the Matador item.

Once the engine nacelle halves were assembled and added to the front of the wings, the aircraft is basically complete. I did some seam cleanup, and except for the nacelles not meeting the wing cleanly, I didn't use much putty. Of course in 1/144, you never use much putty. I then painted. Paint and Decals

Paint was the good old 70/71/65 for this one. I was departing from the markings provided by Minicraft, doing an aircraft from II/KG26. The nice thing about the splinter scheme is that it can be done by painting one of the greens, then masking and painting the other. After it's dry, you remove the mask, remask along the bottom and paint the 65 light blue. Also, don't forget to mask the clear parts under the fuselage. Then a coat of Future, and on to decals. I couldn't use the provided decals for the aircraft I wanted to build, except for the swastikas and the windows. These proved to be quite good. I have had some problems with 2-part swastikas, but Minicraft uses a different method, with an inner cross and outer cross arms. It is quite good. It would be even easier in 1/32 scale, of course. The windows are a touch of genius. This kit is not a new mold. I have the same plastic from Crown and Revell. The windows in the gondola under the wing and on the fuselage sides are merely indicated with recessed lines. The decal sheet gives you windows which go over these panels and look quite convincing. Not as good as a clear part, perhaps, but if you're doing clear windows, you'd also want to do a complete interior, wouldn't you? Finishing Once the decals were on and a second coat of Future put on to protect them, I proceeded to the finishing steps. The cockpit glass comes as 3 parts, top, bottom and nose. I had to do a little cutting on the fuselage sides to get the top to fit without a big gap at the top. Well, a smallish gap, but really noticeable in this scale. Painting the canopy assembly required access to my library. I finally found a good top and bottom reference in Aircam's "profile" style book on the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. The landing gear doors are delivered as a failry thick single piece, so the model can be easily built with the gear up. I used a razor saw and sanding stick to get them about right. The main gear legs required some care to get them to fit the holes in the wells, and then to get them to line up left and right, and to get the plane to sit with the wings level. Overall Evaluation Recommended. Even though the plastic is not new, the decals are excellent. If you own a 1/144 Crown or Revell He-111, you would want to buy one of these so you can use the left over decals from the new kit on the old one, because the Revell and Crown decals are pretty bad. Why I built this Heinkel 111. This aircraft belonged to Stab II/KG 26. On April 3, 1940 the plane took off from Lübeck/Blankensee to attack British merchant shipping. The pilot was Leutnant Benisch, but also aboard was the Gruppe Kommandeur, Oberstleutnant Hefele. They found a small convoy, and attacked. Unfortunately one of the merchantmen was armed, and had either a skilled or lucky gunner, and the Heinkel was damaged. While trying to regain altitude to head for home, they were set upon by a Spitfire of 41 Squadron, RAF.

The Spitfire shot down the Heinkel, but during the attack Obst Lt Henkel apparently manned the nose gun and sprayed the Spitfire. One of these shots apparently hit an oil line or the oil cooler, and the Merlin overheated, to the point where the pilot, Flight Lieutenant H. Norman Ryder was also forced to ditch. Both the Heinkel crew and Lt Ryder were rescued. This was the first Spitfire shot down over British territory during World War 2. The accompanying photo of Flt Lt Ryder, who survived the war, was provided by his widow, Jeanne Ryder, who lives in Sun City, Arizona. Many thanks to Minicraft for the review kit, and to IPMS and John Noack for the history lesson.