Eduard 1/48 Bf 109G Royal Class Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

For a brief discussion of this subject and a look at Eduard's first release of the Bf 109G in 1/48 scale, look here. Eduard followed up on that first Bf 109G release with this Royal Class kit which provides options for the Bf 109G-2, Bf 109G-4, Bf 109G-6, and Bf 109G-14 variants. When you open the box, there are a number of things that catch the eye but seeing the kit bags with FOUR fuselages and FOUR sets of wings gets my attention. There are three boxes inside the kit box so we'll look there first.

The larger box contains a Gustav beer glass which just doesn't look right empty. The second box contains a wood display block with a piece of Bf 109G-14 hot-glued to the block. The hot glue on my example didn't hold but that is easily remedied. The Bf 109G-14 fragment is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity which also explains the source of the part, a Bf 109G-14 flown by Lt. Hans-Helmut Linck who bailed out of his crippled aircraft on 11 Sep 44 before it impacted near the city of Cheb in what is today the Czech Republic. The third box contains three Brassin sets for this release which we'll look at shortly.

The kit is molded in gray styrene and presented on 12 parts trees plus two trees of clear parts, two frets of photo-etched parts, one set of fabric crew restraints, three sets of resin parts, one huge decal sheet of marking options, two sheets of airframe stencils, one beer coaster, plus the aforementioned glass and Gustav part (duplicate parts trees not shown). So while there are four sets of wings and fuselages in the box, you really are getting two complete Bf 109G kits with the parts options to render any of the four variants listed above.

Among the kit's features and options:

• Nicely detailed cockpit
• Color photo-etch instrument panel
• Choice of color photo-etch or photo-etch and cloth pilot restraints
• Fuel line w/sight glass molded in clear
• Positionable canopy
• Choice of windscreens
• Choice of headrest armor
• Choice of normal or tropical filter engine air intakes
• Choice of plastic or resin main gear wheels
• Positionable rudder
• Positionable elevators
• Positionable ailerons
• Positionable leading edge slats
• Positionable flaps
• Positionable radiator flaps

External stores included for this version:

• Optional 20mm gun pods under the wings
• Optional WGr.21 rocket tubes w/rockets
• Optional centerline drop tank

This kit provides markings for 16 examples:

• Bf 109G-2, CO/JG 54, Eastern Front, 1942, as flown by Maj Hannes Trautloft
• Bf 109G-2/Trop, Red 1, CO 8/JG 27, Rhodes, 1942, as flown by Oblt Werner Schroer
• Bf 109G-2/Trop, CO 1./JG 77, Italy, 1942, as flown by Maj Hans Bär
• Bf 109G-2/Trop, White 4, Stab/JG 77, North Africa, 1942
• Bf 109G-4, Black 8, 5./JG 52, Eastern Front, 1943
• Bf 109G-4, Yellow 9, 13./JG 52, Eastern Front, 1943
• Bf 109G-6, Yellow 1, CO 9./JG 52, Eastern Front, 1943
• Bf 109G-6, CO II./JG 52, Eastern Front, 1943
• Bf 109G-6, Red 8, 8./JG 300, Waldlager AB, Germany, 1944
• Bf 109G-6, Yellow 0, 2a Squadrilglia/2o Gruppo Caccia, Italy, 1944
• Bf 109G-6, MT-451, 1/HletLv 34, Finnish AF, 1944
• Bf 109G-6, V8+47, Hungarian AF, 1944
• Bf 109G-6, Red 8, Romanian AF, 1945
• Bf 109G-6, J-711, Swiss AF, 1945
• Bf 109G-14, Yellow 25, 19./EJG 2, Pilsen AB, Germany,1945
• Bf 109G-14, Black 4, 10./JG 4. Alteno AB, Germany, 1944

The decals are provided on one huge sheet and provides the distinctive unit and airframe markings plus two small sheets with two very thorough sets of maintenance stenciling. Yellow-tape canopy masks are also included.

As noted in the initial Bf 109G first-look, there was some interesting criticism that appeared on some of the chat rooms when that kit was released because it seems the kit is a bit over scale, some refer to it as a 1/47 scale kit. It seems that the fuselage is a bit too long while the wingspan is noticeably long compared to other 1/48 scale Bf 109F/G kits. This is certainly not the first kit to have scale problems that appear somewhere between the initial design and final tooling, but I believe what may have caused the criticism online was the advanced promotions of this kit by Eduard as being the most accurate kit of this subject to be produced. Eduard has subsequently acknowledged the scale problem and I'm sure they'll add a few more review items to their design checklist in the future.

With the wide range of Brassin detail sets that are available separately including the resin cockpit and the superdetailed engine/gun bay, you have the best detailed Bf 109Gs on the market or you can opt for building the aircraft using only the plastic parts and still have nicely detailed Bf 109Gs that are also easy builds.

My sincere thanks to Eduard for this review sample!

References:

• Bf 109 Modelers' Online Reference