Scratchbuilt 1/32 Reggiane RE.2005

Sagittario

by Luca Pennacchietti

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Possibly one of the finest shapes in the air ever, the Reggiane Re 2005 Sagittario (Archer) was slowly developed during WWII around the German DB-605 engine.

Though the same engine also powered the Macchi Mc.205 and the Fiat G.55, my personal interest has always been focused on this machine because of the sleek fuselage and the shape of the tailplanes. Style applied to a war machine!

This aircraft didn't change the war. Only 32 units were built, which mainly fought against the B-24 bombers which were bombing the areas around Rome and Neaples.  For sure a Spitfire was downed and also several B-24's. Today only the rear section of the fuselage of one of them survives.

While there are several kits available into the smaller scales, none has ever appeared in the 1/32nd scale which I'm currently preferring most, neither in resin nor as vacuform.

This is why I attempted my first "scratchbuilt" model. Possibly it's not a real scratchbuilt model, but it's not far from it!! It's a puzzle of parts coming from a wide range of models, and the only parts not modified are the propeller's blades. All other parts used for the model have been at least heavily modified from their original shape or built from scratch. Decals have been printed by a laser printer, drawings made by me.

I used parts from several models in 1/32nd scale:

  • Spinner: P-40E, Revell
  • Propeller: P-35, Williams Brothers
  • Engine section: Ki-61 Hien, Revell
  • Exausts: Me-109G (Moskit)
  • Main fuselage: resin copy of a vac of the Macchi Mc..202, ID Models
  • Rear fuselage: A6M Zero Revell (upper) and P-35 (lower)
  • Tail: F-14 tailplane (Monogram, 1/48)
  • Tailplanes: P-47D, Revell
  • Movable tail surfaces: P-35, Williams Brothers
  • Wings: P-35, Williams Brothers
  • Karman joint between fuselage and wings: He-111 (Lindberg, 1/64)
  • Main wheels: F7F Tigercat (Amt, 1/48)

William Brothers offers both the P-35 and its racer version, the S-2. The former has a 'step' wing (more or less like a Texan or a Dauntless), while the latter has a continuous dihedral wing. This wing has the same basic design of the Reggiane fighters, since Mr. Longhi, who drew the earlier Reggiane Re 2000, has worked at Severski's in the late 30's. The Re 2000 is more or less a copy of the S-2 and the Re 2005, though with a much different inner structure and landing gear retraction system, has inherited the basic wing shape. That’s why I started from this kit.

For the fuselage I made a resin copy of the fuselage of a Mc.202 vac by ID Models. It has been flattened on its sides and the large fairing aft of the cockpit has been largely reshaped. The green upper rear part of the fuselage comes from an A6M Zero. The white part comes from the P-35.

The engine section is a resin copy of the cowling of a Revell Ki.61 largely reworked; exausts come from the Moskit range.

The spinner is a much reduced section of a P-40's spinner. The small bumps over the fuselage are sections from resin bombs, all panels and rivets are already into place and the gray primer which was used to reveal defects and scratches is Gunze's Mr. Surfacer 1000 airbrushed by my Badger 150. Nice primer!

Tail comes from an F- 14 in 1/48th (one of the tailplanes…), tailplanes are those of a P-47 much reduced in size, all tail movable surfaces were enlarged by plastic sheet from those of the P-35.

The main landing gear well has been made of plastic sheets and resin details. The "waves" ceiling of the well is a plastic copy of the ceiling of the bomb bay of a B- 26 in 1/48th. It has the correct number of 'waves'! Landing gear legs are those of the P-35, much reworked. The tailwheel strut comes from an F-14 while fork and wheel come from a Me-109E.

The large radiator under the fuselage has been scratchbuilt with plastic sheets.

Canopy has been vacuformed of a resin master. All cockpit parts come from spares or have been made from scratch. The seat is a vacuform copy of the one in the FW-190, modified for the purpose.

The metal and fabric ailerons and tail sections have been simulated by the use of Mr.Surfacer.
I airbrushed a heavy coat of it after having masked by tape the 'fabric' areas. Later everything has been sanded slightly. This way, the metal structure stands out because of the thickness of the putty.

They leave a step, not a scribed or rised edge. Both ways of reproducing this effect onto models would be wrong!

To get the right effect, again I used Mr. Surfacer. I put some tape along the panel joints, always on the lower side of the joint, then I airbrushed the putty onto the tape’s edge. The putty blends over the upper panel and leaves a step towards the lower panel. No need to send anything and a beautiful scale rendering of the real thing, especially on the rear fuselage.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

Rivets were made by the use of pouncing wheel, I bought a set of 3 from Micromark. Larger rivets were scribed one by one with a needle.

The colors I used are all enamels.
Green is Humbrol 75 (flat) mixed with a 50% of gloss clear.
Light Gray is Molak (an Italian brand) LI 5.

Italian paints had a high content of natural resin and were very gloss.  However, the quality was low and they faded very fast, loosing much of the brightness.

All the decals were printed by a laser printer onto clear and white film decal sheets.
The results are not 100% as if I used 'normal' decals but... this way or nothing!
For those interested, I simply used MS Paint and MS Word to draw them.

I didn't buy all available references, I mostly used these ones:
- Ali D'Italia Series No.16: Re.2005, by Gregory Alegi
- Monografie Aeronautiche Italiane No.66
- Aviazione Giovani No.45
- Airkit News No.7
- Reggiane, by Delta Editrice.
- Notiziario CMPR 1/93

The best drawings available of the Sagittario are those included in the first reference book.
However, matching them to the pics, I noticed a few mistakes:
- Tail trim actuator is not present on both sides as in drawings but only at left on the real   aircraft.
- The upper metal shrouds surrounding the engine exausts on the left side of aircraft is larger then the one on the
   right (they are the same size in the drawings). Possibly it was to avoid gas to enter the supercharger intake.
- The two small indicators of gear in lowered position are missing from all drawings.
- A series of "holes" are missing from the inner area of both flaps. They are instead on the real aircraft.

Being built in small numbers and with only a few pics available today (most of not good quality), with only a section of the real aircraft still existing, there are lots of doubts about details and colours of the Re 2005, especially about the interiors. I painted my model following the ‘main stream’ but still have a few doubts.

Special thanks to Giovanni Carlassare who helped about the pilot's harness, Riccardo Vestuto who showed me the Ripetitrice Patin and to Claudio Matteini, a very fine naval modeller, owner of the digital camera I used to take most of the pics!  

Luca

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Photos and text © by Luca Pennacchietti