Airfix Messerschmidt Me109 E-4 - Part I

An early Messerschmidt 109 was a rather logical choice for my next airplane project once I was done with the Spitifire. Not only am I rather keen on having those two old "enemies" sitting side by side on my display, but I was also very interested if Airfix would be able to keep impressed "two models in a row".

First impressions of the model were very positive - two sprues of grey plastic with no apparent blemishes or defects with clean mouldings and very nice panel engravings. Cockpit consists of three parts, making it possible to install it in open position. One detail did however raise my concern - some of very small details are attached to the sprue with rather "solid" lumps of plastic. Extra care must be taken when removing those fragile parts, because they easily be damaged or even broken due to the force needed to cut them out of the sprue. This is especially true when cutting out rear aerlion support balks.

Cockpit of the Messerschmidt is even sparser that that of the Spitfire and suffers from a major problem - the two part decal for instrument panel simply doesn't fit! It's at least a millimeter too large and would have been almost unusable if it wasn't for the fact that cockpit is so cramped that it's hardly possible to see any detail at all once the fuselague is closed and cockpit is in place. Nevertheless, if you don't have third party components at hand, you'd better be prepared to close that cockpit to avoid embarrassing questions. :-)