Heller 1/72 Arado Ar 96B

HELLER 1:72 ARADO AR 96B

Reviewer: Johan De Wolf (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 26 June 2004

Kit Details:

Aircraft: Arado Ar 96 B-7
Scale: 1/72
Kit: Heller #162
Decals: Extra Tech #? + Aeroteam Ar 96B
Etched parts: Extra Tech #O-22
Total building time: around 25 hours.
Overall verdict: oldie but goody.

Aircraft History:

During the mid 30’s the fledgling Luftwaffe was training its pilots on biplanes. This was perfectly acceptable for primary training, but aviation technology was advancing rapidly. It was clear that for advanced fighter training something more modern was needed. The RLM issued a request for an advanced trainer that was to be powered by the 240hp Argus As10. Arado submitted their Ar96 design of which the V1 first flew in 1938. After redesign of the canopy and landing gear it was accepted by the RLM. It was somewhat lacking in power though and it was decided that the 360 hp As410 would be used instead of the As10. The Luftwaffe placed great importance on the new trainer and even though the As410 engine was not available yet Arado was instructed to start production. So the first series, Ar 96A, aircraft where powered by the As10C. The first Ar 96B machines with the As410 started coming of the lines in 1940. Although it was a very successful design Arado itself produced few Ar 96’s. Up until mid 1941 AGO produced most Ar 96’s. After 1941 The Czech company Avia took over production. It was joined by Letov in 1944. In total over 10.000 Ar 96’s where built during the war and besides the Luftwaffe, Hungary and Slovakia used them too. After the war production of the Ar 96B continued at Avia as the C.2.

Version:

As far as colours go on the Ar 96B there is not much to chose from. Most of them where either grey RLM 02 over all or a splinter scheme with green RLM 70 and 71 on top with light blue RLM 65 on the lower surfaces. The Heller kit offers the first scheme and an olive? over light blue scheme. Although this last one is interesting I think the colours mentioned are suspect. Even though a lot of them where built the Ar 96 has been largely ignored by the aviation press. There is one excellent publication that deals with this type though. In Edice Triada #8 I found a machine in the splinter scheme with large yellow areas and a big yellow number 36 on the nose. This machine was found in 1945 abandoned on Nemetsky Brod (nowadays called Havlickuv Brod) in Czechoslovakia. It had belonged to Schlachtgeschwader 102. One of Extra-Tech’s earliest decal sheets depicts this machine. The Aeroteam reissue of the KP Aero C-2 kit features this machine too. It was a B-7, the last version of the Ar 96 produced during the war. The B-7 had a provision for a gun camera, but was not armed with a machine gun like the B-5, nor did it have a radio. It did have the strange fairing under the fuselage. I haven’t been able to find out what this fairing was for. It seems that all Avia produced B-5’s and 7’s had this fairing (post war C.2’s all had it too).

The Kit:

I bought this kit at a modelling contest for just Є2. It was the oldest issue and still in its original shrink-wrap. This kit must be at least 30 years old, and it is a typical Heller kit. It consists of just 30 parts. Surface detail is a mix of finely raised panel lines and engraved moving surfaces. The fit of the parts is pretty good. The canopy is very clear and commendably thin. The cockpit has reasonable detail with seats, sticks and instrument panels available. There are optional parts for a B-1 and a B-5. There was no flash apparent anywhere, but there where a few ejector pin marks on the inside of the fuselage. The decal sheet offers two options; a B-1 based at Zerbst and an unidentified B-5. The printing is sharp but these old Heller decals tend to be a bit thick and they won’t conform well to curved surfaces. If you want an Ar 96, go for one of the recent re-issues. They will have better quality decals.

Accuracy:

Dimensionally this kit is very accurate with both length and span within 1mm of what it should be. Panel lines are not entirely correct and the slot under the wing is missing, but this doesn’t detract from the overall looks of the model. Although not up to today’s standards the kit was one of the more detailed ones of its time. The kit captures the lines of the Arado 96 B series very well.

Construction:

I started with rescribing all raised panel lines and adding a few more. The lines on the bottom of the wing are not very accurate so I corrected them. In picture #1 you can see the rescribed parts on the right and the original on the left. There should be slots in front of the ailerons and flaps; these are not present on the Heller kit. Correcting this would require major surgery, so I just left things as they where. I sanded off the blobs that are supposed to be the engine exhausts, and drilled holes in their place. Then I filled and sanded the ejector pin marks in the cockpit area.

After this was done I glued the cockpit floor to one fuselage half. The floor is actually a bit too narrow, but the gap won’t be visible once the fuselage is closed. There is no sidewall detail at all, so I decided to add this myself. Using the drawings in the Edice triada book as a guide, I made ribs and stringers from Evergreen strips. It looks good and it doesn’t take much time to do this, just over an hour for both fuselage halves. I used the Extra-Tech etch set for the throttle, pitch and flap levers. I glued the Extra-Tech instrument panels to the Heller items. Heller depicts the front panel correctly as not being flat. Therefore I had to cut the etched panel in an upper and a lower part. The bottom of the seat was rounded of, but I could have saved myself the trouble, as this isn’t visible anymore after the fuselage halves are joined. Also correctly depicted in the kit is the step in the cockpit floor. The front seat can be just glued to the floor, but if you do this for the instructors seat too it will end up too low. It should be at almost the same level as the students seat. I made a frame to which I glued the seat at the correct height. The stick for the instructor should also be at the same level as the student’s so this has to be moved up too. I also added rudder pedals. Those of the student are attached to the floor, while those of the instructor are suspended from beneath his instrument panel. For detailing the cockpit area I added some 50 parts, not counting the 8 etched parts. Before I glued the wing together I “boxed” in the wheel wells, and added the fairing. In picture #2 you can see the wing and cockpit, with the left half ready for painting and the right halve already painted. The walls where painted with Tamiya RLM grey. The structural detail was highlighted with Model Master Grau RLM 02, which is slightly lighter than the Tamiya colour. The seats and sticks where also painted with the Model Master colour.

After I was happy with the level of detail I joined the fuselage halves. With some putty I reshaped the fairing for the oil cooler under the cowling. The Heller kit has the earlier style, which was shorter than the fairing used on B5 and later versions. The wing was added now. The fit was pretty good but I did need a bit filler to close a small gap between the wing and the fuselage on the left side. The tail wing needed a bit of filler to fair it in properly too. I added navigation lights to the tail and wingtips, and scratch built a reflector gun sight (note that this is fitted right of the centreline).

The Extra-tech set gives you two parts for the canopy too. One is a frame with handles to make getting into the cockpit easier; the other is the roll bar construction. Neither fitted in the Heller canopy. The Extra-tech set is designed for the KP kit, which has a much too rounded canopy. Therefore these parts do not fit inside the Heller canopy, which has the correct more squarish form. This meant I was stuck with the bit too heavy Heller roll bar. In the end it isn’t all that noticeable because a frame line passes directly over it. After I fitted the canopy in place I noticed I had forgot to put in the rearward sloping support struts for the roll bar. Since I glued the canopy with super glue there was no way to correct this error anymore. I can imagine some of you thinking: “canopy and superglue?? Eeeekkk!!! What about the fogging??” There are two simple ways to prevent the fogging. First the glue residue prefers to deposit on greasy surfaces, so make sure the canopy is grease free. Second the residue is lighter than air, and will rise up. So just turn the model up side down and the fog will disappear into the cockpit where it cannot do any harm. A rather large blister on the right side of the fuselage covered the gun camera. Especially when the Arados where used as squadron hack, this camera was often not fitted, leaving only the mounting plate. As the machine I wanted to model was not attached to a training unit, I decided to only scratch build this backing plate.

Painting:

With only some details left to add it was time for painting. The splinter camouflage was painted with Model master RLM 70 and 71. For the lower surface and the yellow identification panels I used Model master RLM 65 and 04. The mounting plate for the gun camera was painted in RLM 02. After the usual back and forth painting to get nice sharp edges to the splinters, I covered the whole model with Tamiya clear.

Decals:

After comparing the Extra-tech decals with the Aeroteam (=Propagteam) decals I decided to use only the big number 36 decals from the Extra-tech sheet. The print quality of the Aeroteam sheet was much better but the yellow of the 36 was much too bright. The Aeroteam decals went on without a hitch. The Extra-tech decals are very thin but with some extra care they went on fine too. However during drying they started to crack up and disintegrate. So I had no choice but to remove them and use the Aeroteam decals instead. The brightness of the yellow stood out like a sore thumb, and I decided to paint them over with RLM 04. This worked pretty well and gave a worn and fading look.

Final Touches:

The model was now weathered with a wash of black water paint and dry brushed with Tamiya aluminium paint to simulate paint chipping. To seal everything in I applied Talens water based satin varnish. After letting it dry for a day I added the landing gear, the landing light fairing and a pitot to the underside of the model. I also added gear indicator “poles” to the top of the wing (note that not all machines had these fitted). I scratch built new exhausts from Contrail tube and rod. Due to moulding limitations the rear end of the spinner is not smooth and round. To cure this, I cut off the prop blades and glued them to a newly made spinner.

Conclusion:

Even though this kit is some 30 years old now it stood the test of time well. This kit represents Heller at its best and is well worth getting your hands on. Comparing the Heller with the KP kit, it is obvious that the KP kit has more surface detail and the slot in front of the flaps and ailerons. But I’d still go for the Heller kit because it fits so much better and imho it captures the lines of the real machine better.

Paint Used:

Tamiya: XF-1 Flat black, several details

XF-2 Flat white, several details

XF-3 Flat yellow, several details

XF-7 Flat red, several details

XF-16 Flat aluminium, gear, several details

XF-22 RLM grey, cockpit

XF-57 Buff, seat belts

X-22 Clear, all surfaces including transparencies

X-25 Clear green, navigation light

X-27 Clear red, navigation light

Humbrol: 27003 Polished steel, exhaust

27004 Gunmetal, exhaust

Model Master: 2071 Grau RLM 02, cockpit wheel wells

2072 Gelb RLM 04, identification panels

2078 Hellblau RLM 65, underside

2080 Schwarzgrun RLM 70, topside

2081 Dunkelgrun RLM 71, topside

Talens Decorfin Satin varnish

Talens Van Gogh 701 Ivory black, weathering

References:

Putnam German aircraft of the second world war, J.R. Smith & A. Kay
Ilustrovana Historie Letectvi, Edice Triada (Avia C-2, Aero L-29, Tiger Moth), Z. Hurt & P. Kucera & O. Chalas

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