Fiat CR-42 Falco

Backround: The successor to the famous cr32 biplane which earned a legendary repurtation during the spanish civil war, the cr 42 was even better . It featured surprisingly high speed for a biplane (444 kph) , excellent maneuverability , a powerful and reliable engine and surprisingly heavy armament for a biplane (although higher calibre, the 2 breda safat 12,7mm machine guns had pretty low rate of fire and muzzle velocity than the contemperous 12,7mm mgs and the 7,7mm machine guns the otehr biplanes of the time used). The alfa romeo engine produced 1000 hp . The aircraft obvooulsy comes from italy. It also had decent dive performance. Pilots lovedd the aircraft and praised its speed and agility. The aircraft saw extensive service in the spanish civil war and was also used in the battle of britain as well as in the mediterranean where it proofed very effective and deadly. Although normally no match for a spitfire under normal circumstances the aircrafts excellent performance enabled it to get the upper hand in a dogfight. Allied pilots respected the aircraft a lot and called the falco  a pretty difficult enemy . When lured into turn fights, single engine fighter had no chance against the agile dogfighter . On the eastern fron falcos also saw extensive service in the early years where they were extremely successful agaisnt the older soviet fighters like the i 15 biplane which was no match for the falco. The biggest enemy on the easrtern front probably was the i 153 biplane which was a pretty even match for the falco.  As the war progressed and biplanes became more and more obsolete, falco squadron were reequipped with more modern fighters like the mc 202. Despite this they sometimes found theirself into dogfights up until 1944 where a cr 42 flight despite suffering heavy losses recorded the probably last biplaen kill in history as a cr 42 downed an enemy p 38 lightning, a fighter more than 200 kph faster than the little falco. Falcos also saw service as night fighters with the italians and till the wars end , Falcos where used as anti partisan-, night harassment- and light ground attack aircrafts. The Falco is considered the last and one of thebest of the biplane generation , in an era where modern monowing fighters  had took the upper ahnd, the falco still was a plane to be reckoned with,a  reliable aircraft that was praised and loved by its crews

The Model: A Italeri (what a coincidence-italian plane ) model kit in 1/48 scale, cost me 18€ which is a pretty good price for such a kit.
DETAIL:Very good actually, better than you would exspect from Italeri. The engine is extrememly well done with all its details and also the cockpit looks good,its a pretty well detailed kit OOB
*****
Quality: Very good quality, I found no issues
*****
fitting: Pretty good , although the cowling and the struts gave me some problems
****
Decals: Very good, very colourful, the kit contains decals for i think 6 falcos, all flown by aces and the yhave pretty damn good quality
*****
Extras: An amazing aircraft, I love the falco, I think its an absolute gem in terms of appearence, Italy surely had some damn nice aircraft and the falco is one of them, I love this aircraft and I am so glad I finally one one as a model, the kit was  a lot of fun to built and paint and its also the first kit I built not at home but when I was at proffessional school which is over 100 km away from where I usually assemble my kits.
I love the kit, I give
***** extrapoints
Result: An absolute gem of a kit, I love how it came out, The kit is pretty cheap and offers exceptional overall quality and detail, there also exists a tamyia kit in the same scale but it costs almost twice as mutch and I dont think its much better than this one. This kit is fantastic and highly recommended, however be aware that its a biplane kit and as such can be tricky to assemble whwn it comes to the wings so some experience helps.
Still, an absolute must for any wwii italianwarbird fan, Italeri has done a great job on what is probably the best biplane fighter aircraft in history
*****