Here’s the Classic Airframes
SM79 torpedo bomber, built as a bis variant, one of two possible from the box,
the other being an sil. All SM79’s could carry torpedoes but the bis
was the dedicated torpedo version & incorporated armour, armament &
other improvements for the hazardous attacks against allied shipping in the
Med. Effective & popular with it’s crews, the SM79 served with the ANR
in the torpedo bomber role until the end of the war & continued with the
Italian Air Force post war as a transport until the early 1950’s.
First impression upon opening the
box is “wow, this is a large kit!” Main airframe, undercarriage
& torpedo are injection moulded. The majority of the other parts are
resin with a few etched metal on a small fret. These latter included a
dozen or so cockpit levers but I substituted stretched sprue with a blob of
PVA for these components.
The bis did not feature the
ventral gondola & blanking off parts are included to fill the void
although copious amounts of filler were also needed to blend them in &
obtain a flat fuselage underside.
I opted to open the dorsal gun
position. I did this primarily because I read somewhere that this was
always open on the bis & that in fact the retractable “turtle-back”
was usually removed. Looking at photos after I had accomplished the
required sawing & sanding, I am unable to confirm whether my particular
example was so fitted or indeed whether it was generally the case.
Anyway, I wish now that I hadn’t as I am convinced that I have exposed a lot
of missing/incorrect detail.
All resin components were first
sprayed with Humbrol No. 1 primer. The interior was painted with a 2:1
mix of RAF interior green & white (some internet discussions point to the
fact that light grey was also used on the real SM79) & after detail
painting, it was installed within the fuselage.
The wing is awkward but not
impossibly so. I attached the lower wing centre section, followed by the
upper wings & finally the lower outer wings. Gaps resulted at the
roots, which were filled with a combination of plasticard & filler without
too much grief.
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I also drilled the fuselage just
behind the main glazing & upper wings to accept the bracing wires that are
evident on the SM79. Position of the wing attachment involved a little
guesswork – mine are fairly forward (as shown in the cover illustration of
the Squadron “SM79 in Action” publication) whereas other illustrations
show it further aft. The tail bracing points were also drilled out.
The engines are resin on large
casting blocks. Remove the entire block & ensure that the rear of
the engines are perfectly flat as any variation will result in incorrect
positioning once mounted to the model.
The metal fret includes armoured
covers for the lateral gunners positions along with associated “wind
deflectors”. Once all was assembled & filled as required & the
collector rings had been hand painted bronze & masked, the transparencies
were masked off & the whole airframe sprayed with Aeromaster acrylic Verde
Mimetico which went on beautifully. Being matt, I then sprayed on
Humbrol glosscoat to accept the decals, which are also superb quality,
followed by Humbrol mattcoat.
Undercarriage is a simple affair
with good detail to the wheels. I drilled out the axle holes of the
wheels & attachment points on the main legs & inserted wire axles.
Prior to attaching what would be the roof of each undercarriage bay, I had
drilled out the locating holes for the actuating linkages. It was while
mounting the undercarriage that the port wheel well roof came adrift. I
was horrified as it is designed to be fitted “from the top” before the
upper wing is added. With a little lateral thinking, I managed to coax
it out from within the bay & drilled a small hole in it. I then
threaded through a length of monofilament & secured it with CA glue.
I pushed the roof back in, applied a decent amount of CA to the join &
used the monofilament to “pull” it down into the bay. Finally, the
monofilament was cut off. Phew!
Two torpedoes could be carried but
impaired performance. Thus, the SM79 was usually armed with a single
torpedo mounted to port. CA provide mountings in resin for port &
starboard & I fitted both, painting them Xtracolour steel. It is
here that the only components not offered in the box are required, namely,
four lengths of 1mm wire. I have no idea about colours for WW2 Italian
torpedoes & painted the warhead in Humbrol aluminium Metalcoat with the
rest matt black. Torpedo props were painted bronze.
For me, the most awkward feature
of this kit was the front engine long “Wellington” style flame dampened
exhaust. Three identical resin exhausts are provided & those for
port & starboard simply lie flat alongside the nacelles. However, on the
real thing, the front exhaust is obviously “bent” to allow for the wider
curvature of the fuselage at this point. I tried heating & bending
the resin components but resorted to breaking it into three pieces &
adding each individually to flow around the curve; gaps were filled with tiny
amounts of filler. I was initially happy with the result but a little upset to
find that although on the real thing, the exhaust terminates outside of the
torpedo, mine does so inside & by quite a margin. Too late to fix
that!
Props comprise resin hubs with
injected blades. I drilled out the attachment points on each hub &
inserted the blades, using a simple paper jig to get correct orientation in
each case.
The tail braces were added from
monofilament; wing braces & antenna are stretched sprue, as I wanted to be
able to use the old heated pin trick to pull them taught over their relatively
long length.
Final details are the
undercarriage doors, resin guns (with prominent flash hiders), masts,
underwing mass balances & hinges & electrical generator unit on the
starboard fuselage wall adjacent to the cockpit. I modified the exposed
upper gun mounting to bring it further forward into the gunner’s position
& added a short length of cartridge belt (from the spares box).
Finished!
I realise that many modellers
wouldn’t touch anything classified as “limited run” or showing the
phrase “modelling experience required” with a barge pole, and I used to be
one of them, building anything from the WW2 era “Tamigawa” catalogue.
There were no special skills or tools used here that any such modeller
wouldn’t already possess. Cost however is a major factor & at £40
here in the UK this is not a cheap kit, and with the Trumpeter offering coming
in at £10 cheaper, many modellers wanting an SM79 will no doubt go down that
road. Also & to be frank, I feel that Classic Airframes could be a
little more helpful with their instructions, pointing out possible pit-falls
& important considerations & not leave so much for the modeller to
guess, deduce or simply screw up; I can’t believe that this would involve
too much trouble or additional expense for them.
Where to put it? God only
knows! However, He’d better impart His divine wisdom to me as I have
ordered another sil/bis (to build as a sil) model & hopefully managed to
track down the earlier Spanish Civil War boxing. So the kids won’t eat
for a while & “’er indoors” will have to make do with last years
fashions! (What am I saying?…..She earns more than I do!)
Graham
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