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HELLER 1:72 ARADO AR 96B-1/5 |
Reviewer:
Wayne Keegan (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted:
28 March 2004
The Arado 96 B was the most important of the two-seater training aircraft used by the Luftwaffe, the B-1 was for primary training with the B-5 used later for fire training. Powered by the Argus As 410 A-1 12 cylinder inverted vee air-cooled engine it had a top speed of 205 mph (330 kph). Armament consisted of a single 7.92mm MG 17 machine gun mounted above the engine on the right side.
Comprises of 27 mid-grey pieces with 1 clear piece for the canopy. There is very little flash and detail is good with a mixture of raised and engraved lines. Instructions are just 1 A4 double-sided sheet with an exploded view showing where the pieces go and some black and white pictures showing paint schemes and decal placement.
Cockpit first, this consists of a floor with moulded pedals, two seats, two control sticks and a two piece instrument panel which has some fine detail one it and an antenna?. These where painted as per the instructions and left to dry. Whilst waiting I assembled the three piece wing the two upper surfaces fitted to the full width lower surface very nicely even though there are no locating pegs. Next to the fuselage, this I found to be slightly warped so I glued and clamped the tail end leaving the front end open so as to allow the fitting of the cockpit.
Once the paint had dried the cockpit was inserted into the fuselage and then the front was glued and clamped to counter the warped moulding.
Wings where fitted next and this wasn’t so good. The fit of wing to fuselage has about a 1mm gap on both sides and need filling. Also I realised too late that the undercarriage has to be fitted before the wings are assembled. After the canopy was masked with maskol it was fitted and the yellow panels where painted on the nose and wing tips. Next I painted the RLM 65 underside and side panels. I then masked the rest off ready to paint the upper surfaces a drab olive colour.
With the kit painted I attached the prop, tail and undercarriage then when the glue had set I gave it a couple of coats of Kleer to prepare for the decals.
Decals have quite good detail and even have swastikas but didn’t want to settle properly without some gentle coaxing. That done another couple of coats of Kleer to seal everything and the kit was done.
The only real problem I had was one I caused myself by not fitting the undercarriage before putting the wing halves together but this isn’t terminal as I just removed the rear placement pegs and then could “fiddle” them into place.
I liked this kit and I don’t think there are many others of the trainer available. Like I said no real problems and looks good when finished.
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