Heller 1/50 Fiat G.91 Gina

HELLER 1:50 FIAT G.91 "GINA"

Reviewer: Paulo Ivo Teixeira (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 3 August 2006

Kit Details:

Heller Fiat G91 1/50 scale, 1970s vintage or older. Box long gone, if memory doesn't fail me it was of the sturdy, top-opening typical Heller variety. No mention of what G91 variant this is (but see below).

Aircraft History:

Designed by Giuseppe Gabrielli of Fiat (later Aeritalia and now Alenia), the G91 was developed to meet a NATO requirement for a light attack/close support plane issued to the European aircraft industry early in 1954. It was envisaged that the winning design should become standard equipment in NATO's European air forces, but this aim was never realised. In spite of this the aircraft was built in substantial numbers, in Italy and under licence in Germany, and eventually became an important type with three air forces.

Resembling a scaled-down version of the North American F-86K Sabre, the first prototype made its maiden flight on 9 August 1956. The G91 met all the demands of the specification, especially with regard to its ability to operate with and without loads from semi-prepared grass airstrips.

The initial G91 production version was a ground-attack fighter, for which the primary armament consisted of four 12.7 mm (0.50 in) Colt-Browning machine guns. It is probably this early variant that the kit portrays. It gained a reputation for being reliable and easy to fly, and the manufacturers were quick to realise its suitability for the tactical reconnaissance role, leading to the `R' series. The R/1A and R/1B Italian Air Force variants were basically the G91 with a shorter nose containing three 70-mm focal length Vinten cameras for forward and oblique photography at low altitude, vertical photography being possible at high altitude. The R/3 was built to a West German specification and armed with two 30 mm DEFA cannon instead of the four machine guns, and featured Doppler navigation and a position and homing indicator. It became operational with the German Luftwaffe in May 1962 and served until the mid 1970s. Two R/3s were thoroughly evaluated by the US Army but no production order followed, as a result of US Air Force opposition to the US Army flying fixed-wing aircraft. The final R version was the R/4, which was basically an R/3 with R/1 armament and some equipment changes. Some 50 were ordered with US financing for delivery to Greece and Turkey under the terms of the Mutual Aid Program, but the aircraft were then diverted to the West German Air Force. 40 of these were subsequently transferred to the Portuguese Air Force, where they were supplemented some 40 R/3 that became surplus to German requirements. The Portuguese aircraft saw considerable operational use in the country's wars of the late 1960s and early 1970s, fighting independence movements in the then Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique: several were lost to enemy fire, especially in the form of shoulder-mounted SAM missiles. The last Portuguese G91Rs were not retired until 1993.

A two-seat trainer version, the G91T, was also supplied to the Italian and German Air Forces. The final G91 version, the G91Y, was designed to an Italian Air Force requirement of 1965. It is an improved G91R fitted with twin afterburning turbofans and capable of carrying a larger warload. The last G91Ys were retired from active duty in 1996.

The Kit Parts:

41 injection-moulded, including 37 darkish-grey plus 4 clear (2-piece canopy and 2 landing lights). Curiously, instructions quote 46 parts but only list 41. Raised detail, some of it overscale. Little flash, no sink marks, no ejector pin marks, fit in general very good. Main fuselage split vertically.

There are no wheel wells! Undercarriage legs are cemented into holes on the fuselage underside, as are airbrakes. Some of the undercarriage doors are just butt-joined to fuselage. Some detail on undercarriage legs, including 2 landing lights to go on front part of nose wheel door.

Cockpit is just a gaping hole: pilot seat (with or without pilot) is cemented onto the edge of this hole by the seat headrest, leaving the pilot dangling perilously in the void.

Instructions:

One roughly A3-sized sheet featuring: short aircraft history and brief technical specification, parts listing, general assembly and decaling tips. One construction step showing two exploded views of aircraft, with additional text instructions. Painting and decaling guide for a single option, showing side and split top/bottom view. Given the simplicity of build this is quite adequate. French only on top side of sheet, reproduced in English and German (minus pictures) on back.

Options:

Options

Undercarriage up or down, airbrakes open or closed. Underwing stores comprise 2 rocket pods (inner pylons) and 2 machine-gun pods (outer pylons).

Colour Schemes:

A single unidentified Italian Air Force example in aluminium finish with black anti-glare panel.

Decals:

Small sheet containing Italian roundels, aircraft numbers, something for the wing roots, and two large stencils to go on rear end of fuselage. Good adhesion properties but very thick, woefully visible carrier film.

Construction:

I first built this kit as a teenager some 25 years ago. That I could get it to look more or less right is a testimony to its ease of construction. Parts fit is in general very good and there are no problem areas (except of course that there is a lot of scope for extra detailing).

Well, the model sat on my cupboard, built and decaled, but unpainted as was my practice at the time, for a few years, after which I decided to add splotches of dark green (exact colour reference long since lost, but probably FS34092) in some sort of self-styled camouflage pattern, plus for some reason I painted the nose, rocket and machine gun pods, and the tip of the tail fin bright orange. And thus it spent the next 20 or so years, slowly gathering large quantities of dust and having bits broken off.

Fast forward to 2006. Having returned to modelling after a long break, I became aware of the easy availability of aftermarket decals and decided to redo the old Fiat. Because it is so basic, it hadn't suffered irreparable damage - there isn't much to be damaged really. So I started by giving it a good rinse and then removed what was left of the original decals using masking tape. As I wrote above a few parts had come off, including parts of the landing gear, the seat+pilot and the canopy. As the landing gear is so crude this was going to be a wheels-up model, so I removed what was left of the gear legs and doors, filled any holes and sanded it all smooth. Minor amounts of filler were also required at the wing/tailplane roots. I painted the cockpit, intake and inside of the exhaust flat black (Hu 33), so it can't be seen there's nothing in there: luckily a blanking plate is provided for the intake, otherwise you'd be able to see right through the aircraft!

The pilot's chair was painted flat black (Hu 33) to match photos, with a khaki (Hu 26) headrest. I added ejector seat handles made from braided copper wire, strands painted flat black and gloss yellow (Hu 69). Pilot's flying suit was painted Army Green (Hu 102) as per the instructions, helmet satin white (Hu 130), and face and hands a pinkish shade obtained by mixing colours many years ago, can't remember which.

After so many years and so much rough handling, the canopy was understandably scratched and stained with glue. I polished it as best I could, first with 1200-grit sandpaper, then with a kitchen paper towel, finally with soft toilet tissue. The final result, though by no means perfect, is a major improvement.

Then of course the canopy would not fit - there were huge gaps where the opening part of it meets the fuselage (almost 1 mm wide), which had to be filled with white glue.

I had decided very early on that I wanted to renovate this old kit as a Portuguese Air Force (FAP) plane. Reasons were threefold. First, Santa Cruz Decals have produced a number of very nice decal sheets in 1/48 scale, which is close enough to 1/50. Second, there are a number of such aircraft on static display in the Lisbon area, which I could refer to if necessary. Third, the FAP was the world's only air force to have actually used the G91R in combat. I was then faced with a choice between the R/3 and R/4 variants: of these I chose the latter, as it carries the same four machine guns in the nose area as the basic G91, unlike the R/3's two cannon which would have required extra conversion work.

Being unhappy about single-colour or grey-green schemes, and lacking the confidence to tackle the famous Tiger Meet paint job, I chose the late-1980s camouflage of US tan FS30219 (Hu 118) and US Dark Green FS34079 (Hu 116). This is a wraparound scheme and photos show that underwing fuel tanks were also camouflaged, but I was unable to find any photo of an aircraft carrying the particular ordnance this one does, so on the basis of artwork found in references I painted the bodies of the rocket and machine gun pods Revell aluminium (Re 99), the inside of the machine gun pods flat black (Hu 33), and the cones of the rocket pods dull aluminium (Hu 56) for contrast, with the rocket exit holes picked out in gunmetal (Hu 53). The anti-glare panel fore of the windscreen is also flat black, as is a stripe at the top of the tail fin. Finally, I painted the tip of the nose gloss black (Hu 21), again to match photos, though I believe that on the real aircraft it is actually a piece of transparent glass.

Other items added included nose machine gun muzzles made with rolled-up thick metal foil and painted flat black; wingtip lights made with chunks of clear sprue sanded more or less to size and coloured green and red with marker pens; the two small vents jut fore of the wing roots; and wingtip pitot tubes made with steel pins. The first two are a little overscale, but nothing dramatic - couldn't do them any smaller anyway :-). The vents were sculpted out of old Airfix 1/72 F-4 Phantom nose IR seekers. The pitot tubes were attached by first carving out a small dent on the wingtip leading edge, into which the pin head would fit; this was then filled with Revell putty, which dries fast and hard, but not as fast as superglue (which I'm scared of). The attachment points were then sanded smooth and painted over.

I used aftermarket decals printed by Santa Cruz Decals of Portugal for an aircraft of Esquadra 301 Jaguares in 1/48 scale (which is only about 4% off sizewise). I must say I was rather disappointed: after reading glowing reviews of some of their products on the Aircraft Resource Center website, I was expecting much better! Instead, the fuselage roundels and the flags for the tail fin are noticeably underscale, as are the wingroot decals: the latter should extend all the way from the wing leading edge to the trailing edge but were some 7 mm or so too short! This is all the more surprising since they are nominally 1/48 scale, which if anything should look slightly too big on a 1/50 scale model!!! I had no choice but to snip them down the middle and then paint the missing length of yellow line (Hu 69), luckily with careful masking this blended in quite well. Problems didn't end there though: several of the stencils had excellent adhesion properties to my fingers but not to the model surface, probably as a result of age or inadequate shop storage. This was fixed by applying some diluted white glue with a Q-tip, before (and if necessary also after) laying on the decal (I used the other end of the Q-tip to mop up the excess). Further gripes are that the decal placement guide only shows a 2-view of aircraft, there is no painting guide, and two of the three camouflage colours quoted are incorrect: the FAP actually used two tan (FS30219) & green (FS34079, not FS34102) colour schemes, an earlier one with light grey (FS36622, not FS36307, which would be much darker) undersides from 1980 to 1983, and the later wraparound one from 1983 to 1993. Finally, notice that the decal sheet does not include the two red stripes around the rear of the fuselage, which are clearly visible in photos: I painted them gloss red (Hu 19), the aft stripe should be wider than the fore one (this doesn't quite match the red colour on some of the decals, but the same seems true of the real planes, so that's weathering for you :-) ).

Display stand (remember, this is a wheels-up model) is from a 1/72 Airfix Canberra (also reviewed by me on SMAKR), painted gloss black (Hu 21) as I thought it looked stylish :-). This required carving a rather unseemly slot on the underfuselage centreline.

Accuracy:

`Basic' sums it all up. General shape ok but some of the surface detail is overscale. If modelling a G91R, then the two small vents just fore of the wing roots, which are prominent in every photo, will have to be added, as will the pitot tube on the left (port) wing: G91Rs have them on both wingtips, and the attachment points should be farther out. The canopy should be more curved at the top, the nose a tad shorter. Non-existent cockpit, wheel wells or engine detail.

Conclusion:

A very basic, very easy-to-build old kit in an unusual scale. With a little extra work a pleasing result can be obtained. Obviously not up to modern standards by a long shot, but enjoyable nevertheless. Recommended to all (if you can still find it).

References:

Paul Eden and Soph Moeng (eds.), The Encyclopedia of World Aircraft (Silverdale Books, Leicester, 2002).
Michael Sharpe, Attack and Interceptor Jets (Dempsey Parr, Bristol, 1999).
http;//walkarounds.home.sapo.pt/fiat.htm (in Portuguese).

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