MATCHBOX 1:72 FIAT G.91Y

 

Reviewer: Paulo Ivo Teixeira (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted:  16 April 2008

Kit Details:

Matchbox 1/72 Fiat G91Y 1/72 scale, kit # PK-34 from 1979. Bagged, all parts removed from sprues; back of box showing painting guide included. From a model shop in Lisbon, Portugal, for 5 euros in December 2007.

Aircraft History:

For a general history of the Fiat G91 see any of the reviews on this site, including those by Mark B. or myself. 

Here I concentrate specifically on the Y-variant, known unofficially as "Yankee". It was developed to meet an Italian Air Force requirement of 1965, unlike the original G91R which was designed to a NATO specification. The G91Y differed from the G91R in being fitted with twin afterburning turbofans, which provided more thrust for only an 18% increase in weight. This offered greater warload, performance and operational 
survivability.

The G91Y retained the G91R's three-camera nose. It also had the later G91R variants' armament of two fixed, forward-firing 30-mm DEFA cannon, but was capable of carrying an increased disposable warload. This included bombs of up to 1000 lb (454 kg), napalm tanks or four rocket pods. The avionics was also more comprehensive than that of the G91R, including a heads-up display. Given the emphasis placed on the type's STOL performance, provision was made for RATO units and an airfield arrester hook. Without these aids the G91Y could take off from a semi-prepared surface in just 915 m (3,000 ft) and land in only 600 m (1,970 ft).

The first of two prototypes made ita maiden flight on 27 December 1966. The first of 20 pre-production aircraft flew in July 1968 and an order followed for 53 production aircraft, of which only 45 were delivered. The G91Y entered service with its sole operator, the Italian Air Force, in May 1970, and was retired from active duty in 1996.

The Kit:

45 injection-moulded parts, some dark green, some light grey, plus one-part canopy, all floating freely in bag. The only part missing was the pilot, which I usually leave out anyway. Finely-raise panel lines on most of the fuselage, with only a few of the notorious Matchbox trenches. Recessed control surfaces. Main fuselage split vertically. Cockpit comprises an entirely featureless instrument panel plus floor + side consoles + seat + rear bulkhead moulded as a single part; no raised or recessed detail whatsoever and the seat is little more than a shape (albeit about the right one). Decent undercarriage legs and wheels, nice detail on inside of undercarriage bay doors. Very little flash and few ejector pin marks. Fit is ok but not brilliant: a few gaps and steps will need filling/filing.

Instructions:

One roughly A4-sized sheet folded in two, then again in two featuring: short history of aircraft in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish; general instructions and explanation of symbols. Ten easy-to-follow construction steps, including detail painting instructions: references are to the Humbrol paint range only. Detail decalling guide. (Painting guide showing 3-views of aircraft is on back of box, luckily included.)

Options:

Wheels up or down, choice of underwing stores: bombs, rocket pods, drop tanks.

Colour and Decal Options:

Two aircraft, both in dark grey/dark green camo over aluminium undersides:


© Paulo Ivo Teixeira 2008

Construction:

Construction started with cleaning sprue attachment points from all parts and removing the odd ejector pin mark (of which there were mercifully few). I then painted the cockpit walls, floor and pilot's seat dark gull grey FS36231 (Hu 140); the instructions say light grey (Hu 64) but, having looked into a real G91R's cockpit, I think this would be too light and moreover Hu 140 is a kind of generic cockpit colour for 1960's-1970's NATO fighters. I then painted the side consoles and the instrument panel flat black (Hu 33), as well as the top of the seat. The cushion and headrest were pained mid brown FS30215 (Hu 62) to match photos, and I added seat belts made of masking tape and painted US light ghost grey FS36375 (Hu 127) with silver (Hu 11) buckles. A few dots of satin white (Hu 130) were applied on the consoles and instrument panel with the tip of a toothpick to simulate instruments, as well as a big Brunswick green (Hu 3) blob to simulate a radar screen. The instrument shroud was painted flat black, as was a scratchbuilt control stick.

Weight, in the form of lead chippings embedded in Patafix (European blu-tack, it's actually white) was placed in the nose and immediately aft of the cockpit where there was a little more room available. The cockpit, the instrument panel and the roof of the main wheel bay were glued to the left fuselage half, and then the two halves were glued together: fit was mostly good, with only a small step aft of the cockpit opening, which I could just file off, and a bigger step along the rear underfuselage centreline, which required some Revell putty. 

The rear fuselage section with the engine exhausts went on next, there were a few gaps aroung this that required a little more Revell putty. The nose tip also fit fine, with only a hairline gap that was filled with white glue and then filed/sanded.

Instructions tell you to paint the wheel bays and the inside of wheel bay doors aluminium, which is the same colour as the aircraft undersides and undercarriage legs/actuators. This would make for a rather dull result, so for contrast I elected to paint the former dull aluminium (Hu 56) and the latter a brighter shade of aluminium (Re 99), just for contrast. 

Wings are in two halves, upper and lower, with holes cut out in the lower halves for the main undercarriage. I painted the inside of the upper halves dull aluminium (Hu 56), as these are also the roofs of the undercarriage bays. The wing halves were then glued together, some white glue had to be used at the wingtips. The wings attach very solidly to the fuselage: in addition to positioning slots, the whole wingroots actually fit into recesses on the fuselage sides. This again left a few gaps around the wingroots that could be dealt with using white glue. Same for minor gaps aroung the tailplane roots.

Time to do some serious painting. "Dark green" and "dark grey" of course mean different things to different people at different times and in different places. The Don Color website suggested, for the Italian AF F-104S Starfighter (which was a near contemporary of the G91Y) dark gull gray FS36118 (hu 125) and US dark green FS34079 (Hu 116). This would have made for an extremely dark aircraft and did not quite match photos on www.airliners.net, which show even well-maintained museum airframes wearing a noticeably lighter grey and a greener green. The IPMS Stockholm colour charts suggest blue grey FS36152 (Hu 79) and WWI green FS34096(?) (Hu 108). This looked about right (it matches the colours in the photos in some average sense), so I decided it would be my choice. Now Hu 108 is a deleted colour from the current Humbrol range, but I managed to get hold of a tin at a Lisbon model shop that clearly doesn't have a large model paint turnover. It looks like a lightened olive drab (old olive drab, Hu 66, that is), so an alternative might be to add some white to Hu 66, or else use Hu 86 olive green. 

I started by painting the whole of the upper surfaces Hu 79, and then freehanded the camo pattern with Hu 108. The paint guide only shows the top, bottom and left-hand side of aircraft, so I had to refer to a (rather dark) photo in a book for the right-hand side. Later inspection of another photo on www.airliners.net revealed that I didn't get the tailfin quite right, but the difference is small and probably within the bounds of variability between individual airfames. I am a brush painter, and both colours went on well with a minimum of brush marks. The resulting pattern looks very realistic and (to my eyes at least) pleasing, with subdued transitions between colours (on the downside, it can be hard to pin down the demarcation lines when touching up).


© Paulo Ivo Teixeira 2008

I then masked straight demarcation lines with strips of masking tape and attacked the task of painting the undersurfaces. According to the instructions these should be aluminium. After much hesitation, I decided I would also brush paint it rather than use my Tamiya Silver Leaf rattle can, as this would have required some rather involved masking on such a small model. Humbrol aluminium (Hu 56) being too dark and flat, I again went for Revell aluminium (Re 99). Now this is an absolute pig of a paint to apply: not only does it seem to dry way too fast, it congeals into droplets and lumps and threads that all come off the kit's surface if you so much as lightly swipe the brush over it a second time. This doesn't seem to have anything to do with the age of paint, as I've had the same problem with tins straight from the shop. The only way I've found to mitigate it is to add a few drops of enamel thinner and stir the paint very well; then you can get in a few hassle-free brush strokes, before it all goes bad again. To make things even worse the paint appears to creep up the inside of the tin and form a gloopy mess around the lid which doesn't seem to ever dry properly!

In the meantime I had also put together the bombs, which were painted olive drab FS34087 (Hu 66); and the rocket pods, which were given Revell aluminium (Re 99) bodies and gunmetal (Hu 53) nose cones. The arrestor hook, underwing pylons and the outsides of all landing gear doors were also painted Re 99, the insides Hu 56. The landing gear was painted and assembled; the tyres are flat black (Hu 33), everything else Revell aluminium (Re 99).

I then did the exhausts: flat black "inside" (actually they have no depth at all!), gunmetal (Hu 53) outside. From photos on www.airliners.net they should probably be black outside as well, but I like the contrasting effect of two different metallic colours. The cannon muzzles, nose tip and anti-glare panel were also painted flat black (Hu 33), the canopy framing blue grey FS36152 (Hu 79).

Ventral strakes and arrestor hook were attached. The former required white glue to fill gaps, and some rectification of the upper/lower camo demarcation line. One of the strakes sits with a slight splay due to less than perfect fit, it was a compromise between having it point in the right direction or at the right angle without surgery.

Among the last items to go on were the undercarriage bay doors, bombs and rocket pods. The main undercarriage bay doors must not be attached hanging vertically, otherwise they will trail on the ground. Also don't forget there's a decal to go on the front part of the nose bay door. The underwing pylons are a poor fit on the wings, requiring white glue to fill gaps plus sanding and touching up of the horrid Re 99 aluminium paint. The canopy, on the contrary, is an excelent fit (most unlike my few previous builds!), just a tiny amount of white glue fixed a couple of hairline gaps. Finally, the wingtip pitots, which I left until after decalling: these are butt-joined, and consequently very delicate, so I used minor amounts of white glue as reinforcement. The wingtip lights were coloured green (right) and red (left) with permanent marker pens, on a flat white (old, yellowed Hu 34) undercoat.


© Paulo Ivo Teixeira 2008

Decals:

Still protected by (a very badly yellowed piece of) waxed paper. A fair amount of stencilling is included, perhaps unusually for a kit of this age and provenance. I opted for 32nd Squadron, which sports a fearsome shark's mouth - a feature I'm particularly fond of. 

Now the decals were, of course, rather old and looked a bit - well, dry. So I feared they would at worst disintegrate, at best not stick to the kit at all. It was with some aprehension that I dipped the first into hot water. It took a long time to come of the backing sheet - but when it did, it didn't break. On being placed on the model it left behind a trail of sticky white goo, which had to be removed with a toothpick and a Q-tip; it was at this point that I thought it'd lost all its adhesive and would fall off in no time. Luckily, none of my fears materialised: the decals not only did not break (NOT A SINGLE one did, even red stripes some 5 cm/2 in long), they even adhered remarkably well and conformed to surface detail better than some modern ones. My only gripesare: (i) they are a bit too thick, with slightly uneven surfaces, perhaps due to age; and (ii) the red stripes carry thin white edges that I don't think should really be there - but hey, there's nothing I could do about it, and looking on the bright side, they don't actually look bad! :-)

Accuracy:

Quoting from a review by Silvio Pietropaolo on the Aircraft Resource Center website (http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com):

"The Matchbox kit in 1/72 was produced 20 years ago and it has various mistakes to correct. The wingspan is 3 mm less than right, the tailwing are 2 mm too long, the profile of canopy is too low, the fin has a wrong profile, the cockpit is sparse."

I did nothing whatsoever to correct any of these except add seat belts and a control stick, as described above.

Conclusion:

This is a very easy kit with pretty good fit, suitable for all. The more discerning modeller will want to fix a few gaps and steps, the absolute beginner can just ignore these and still be happy with the result. Detail and accuracy not up to modern standards though.

You just got to love them old Matchbox (and Airfix for that matter) kits! I know I do. :-)

References:


© Paulo Ivo Teixeira 2008

 

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