Anigrand Craftswork 1/72 Arado Ar.E.340 Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Quoting the instructions:

"In 1939, the office of the RLM launched the Bomber B program for a new type of medium bomber capable of carrying a 4,000kg bomb load to any point in the British Isles. Power would be supplied by the Junkers Jumo 9-222 or the Daimler Benz DB 9-604, both were under development. The contract was issued to the firms of Arado, Dornier, Junkers, and Focke Wulf. The first manufacturer to respond was Arado. They submitted the E.340 design which had already reached the mock-up stage. The E.340 layout featured a central gondola and two separate tail booms, in order to guarantee the rear gunner an unobstructed field of fire. However, this revolutionary design was not accepted by the RLM. It was rejected and the design was dropped from the development program. The other three designs responded to the program was the Dornier Do.317, the Junkers Ju.288, and the Focke Wulf Fw 191. All of them had reached prototype stage and were flight tested. Despite the good flying characteristics of all the prototypes, the RLM decided to cancel the Bomber B program on the lack of the intended Jumo power-plant."

This new kit is packaged in Anigrand's usual sturdy box and is packaged in compartmented pouches to keep shipping damage to an absolute minimum.

The fuselage and booms are hollow-cast and the cockpit is integral to the fuselage. The kit provides for four crew stations, two of which accommodate the pilot and co-pilot.

With the crew stations installed, the fuselage halves to together, the upper and lower remote-controlled turrets are installed, and the vacuformed transparencies are cut out and installed as well.

The wings plug into either side of the fuselage, each of the boom halves are assembled and mated to the wings. Care must be taken to ensure that the booms are in proper alignment with the fuselage gondola.

The three-bladed props are assembled and installed - the kit provides spare prop blades but none of mine appear defective.

Despite the size and twin-boom arrangement of this aircraft, this is still a taildragger. The plus side is that you don't have to worry about nose ballast, but you do need to be careful with those tail wheels when setting this beast down!

Markings are provided for the wing and fuselage crosses and the tail swastikas. Notional aircraft markings are also provided.

This is a nice-looking kit and should be a quick build for the experienced resin modeler.

This kit is definitely recommended for the modeler who is tired of the same old subjects getting released by the 'big guys' in the hobby industry!

My sincere thanks to the US importer, Nostalgic Plastic for this review sample!