Junkers Ju 88 A-1 1/32

Finally, the assembly of this giant was finished in may I think but so far I didnt colour it, because I was afraid of ruining it. Now I finally did colour it and it looks very nice. It is the biggest airplane in my collection so far.


Backround. The Ju 88 , produced by junkers was with no doubt the most versitile airplane of wwii. It was first produced as a bomber, and at the beginning of the war it was intended to accompany the heinkel he 111 and the older dornier do 17 . At the beginning of the war and the attack against poland, few ju 88 were operational. Later for example in the french campaign, the ju 88 was used as a horizontal and a dive bomber. This plane followed the typical german doctrin of building bombers that would be able to dive on targets to preciely drop their bomb. Most famous of these was the infamous ju 87 stuka. The ju 88 was like a twin engined stuka, in fact it was one of the most feared german airplanes, and was used as a terror bomber in the british campaign, were it despite some loses proved itself a formidable aircraft. At first, only 3 machine guns were installed , later versions like the a 4 had 6 machine guns. Powered by two jumo 211 engines, the Ju 88 could reach speeds of 488 km/h. Its dive flaps enabled the ju 88 to dive precisely onto its target. over 15000 of these planes were built . The ju 88 was intended first as a schnell bomber(fast bomber),able to pierce quickly into enemy airspace and then drop its bombs.
In the war, the ju 88 was used on every major battlefield. It was not only used as a bomber, it served as a heavy fighter, tank destroyer, ground attack aircraft, mistel aircraft, reconassaince aircraft, torpedobomber and as a nightfighter. This made the ju 88 the most versitile of every wwii aircraft. Ju 88s were used until the war ended and it was in production untile the war ended too. The ju 88 was developed into the ju 188 from which 1234 were produced. The 188 had a more aerodynamic(and despite this a more elegant) cokcpit section. Further devopment led to the ju 288 which was eventually cancelled due to engine troubles with the jumo 222 . The 288 then was developed into the junker ju 388 from which few could be beuilt until the war had ended. A bigger, 4 engined version the junker 488 was in prototype status and had partially been built as the war ended


The model kit: As far as I know revell is the only one with a ju 88 in that scale. This thing is just HUGE. As you can see in the comparison shot with a 1:72 bf 109, it is truely a giant and you need some space if you wanna built this one. The kit costs 50 € which is quite cheap for such a big kit. It contains many parts and a gigantic decal part. Revell really made a great decision when making bombers in 1:32, now not only the heinkel 111 is in 1:32, in october, a heinkel 219(the nightfighter aircraft) will be available in this scale, and believe me, I will definetely try to get my hands on one of those beautys!

Detail: Man, what a great job, the detail is excellent. The cockpit is astounding, it is extremely well detailed and looks just awesome. The rest is also fine and looks very very nice. The machine guns also look awesome the only negative point is that there are no bombs and no bomb hardpoints... but really, Revell did a great job
*****
Fitting. I really exspected big bi problems, but to my surprise I got positively surprised: I already read in a reveiw, that this kit has some problems with the cockpit fitting but really, there was no problem when i built it. The fiting is excellent, even the wings which are huge fitted perfectly to the fuselage, it is one of the bestr fittings I have xpreinced so far, and this is really a great surprise because this kit is just so big.
*****
Functions: Functions are excellent, we have to big probs that spin around( besides that, I have also to admit that the props of this kit are the biggest I have built so far) also the wheels can move which is very nice
*****
Decals: Man those decals are huge and they are extremely well detailed. They look very nice and although some of the decals were extremely thin(like the red lines) they didnt fold up. The decals look great. Revell is for me the best when it comes to decals, and this is no exception
*****
Extrapoints: You just gotta love that kit, it looks incredible and it is a real eyecatcher, just by its size. The plane looks very nice, detail is extraordinary good, we have good functions, big and very good looking decals, and a fitting that is reallly just perfect. This kits gets
***** extrapoints and these are really deserved!

Fazit: It is one of the best model kits from revell, and I think it tops the heinkel he 162 (which I said was the best one i built so far). Although it is not a kit for beginners because of its part numbers, its size and lots of detail work(the cockpit needs a lot of detail painting and contains some very thin and fragile parts) a little bit more expereinced modeler shouldnt have problems with it because the fitting is so nice and youjust really wanna build this plane correctly, to present it in you room in all its (big) glory
I can absolutely recommend this kit, it is in my opinion a masterpiece and is a shinig star in everymodel collection. Despite its price which maybe sounds much but is relatively cheap for such a big kit- the money it definetively worth to spend on this kit. My finaly rating is
*****
A truely awesome kit!



Note: Yeah i know the colours arent really right. But I went beyond a straight from the manual colour schem. The machine was part of KG54 which was also operating in africa. I personally had some problems applying the splintertarnung(splinter camouflage) because I couldnt get those straight lines right. So after hours of disappointing try and error I got so frustrated that I just thought : damn screw the instructions, I make my plane in a desert camouflage!!! Thats how I made the colour scheme of this plane. I have to say it looks quite nice and in the end I like the outcoming. Its the star of my model collection