The Anton Ryzbak branch of the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke

an old one but a good one, most Heller kits appeared in the 1960's through the very early 80's

the raised panel lines and rivets give away their age, but they still build up into good looking models

        Pleased I was with the quick addition of strength to my Polish air force by the "group build". In light of that I decided to take it to the next step and build ALL of my BF-109 kits at the same time (there are only six, so it wasn't that much of a tall order). Four of the kits were from Heller, three were BF-109 B/C and one was a E model. The other two kits were the old Airfix mold, one packaged by Airfix the other under the MPC brand. With a fresh No.11 blade in my X-Acto knife and a bottle of Testor's liquid cement at my elbow I dove into the task.

 

a pretty basic cockpit, but better than most kits this old

 

the recurring problem of kits being designed as "wheels down" display models

if you want retracted landing gear you have to put in a lot of extra work

 

 

the excellent fit of parts made this a fun build

 

 clothes-pins takes care of a lot of the boring "hold parts together as the glue dries"

 

the wing/fuselage joint is where most kits have problems

a touch of putty takes care of things

 

there were some minor problems on top of the wing a s well

 

the Airfix and MPC kits are shot from the same molds

 

 

pretty good decals considering the four decades they spent in the box

 

all six assembled and ready for the paintshop!

        Two of the B/C kits will be painted for the Spanish Civil War and the rest will be in the later scheme for Poland/Norway/France. These airframes sit at the end of the time-span considered by my air combat rules so there won't be any F-K models showing up any time soon.