I've always thought
the Reggiane Sagittario was the best looking Italian aircraft of the war- there is
something sleek and purposeful about the lines that I find compelling. When I
found the LF resins 1/72nd scale kit of the Sagittario on E-bay, I was
a little surprised that I had never heard of it before- but it was a fairly
reasonable purchase of $12 (and reasonable purchases seem to be hard to come by
these days on e-bay) so it was definitely bumped to the front of
the assembly line when it finally arrived safe and sound. The kit itself is more
of a second generation resin kit- some pin holes -slightly irregular surfaces
and more worrisome- definitely irregular panel lines. This combined with a few
incompletely formed pieces pretty much guaranteed a full re-scribe and redo- but
so do most of the resin kits of this age. C'est la vie!
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images below to see larger images
I separated the control
surfaces and started the sanding and filling process- and with the few
additions of some sheet styrene to replace incompletely formed areas the
kit went together fairly well. The interior pieces were at best ill formed
and the wrong size for this kit- and at this point I opted for the
easy way out and installed a resin Mc-202 interior - the first of
many short-cuts to come. The engine intake and sand filter was also badly
misformed and it was at this point I decided to snatch the one from my
very old Pegasus kit of the same aircraft and form a resin replacement
from it- but it wasn't much better. Now that I had the Pegasus kit
out of the stash I decided to compare the old kit to the new- and
found out they were the same!
The LF kit is a
direct copy of the Pegasus kit with these slight changes- the wing was molded as
a one piece unit- a nicer vacuformed canopy that the original injection molded
one- and a general decrease in quality of all the panel lines and detail.
They have also substituted a german propellor and spinner to make the 601/605
version of the aircraft. and a truly nice set of basic photo -etch including the
landing gear doors. Picture number 5 shows the LF and the Pegasus belly
radiators-with both needing the same repairs..... The scheme and decals were the
LF box supplied one with some shading and pastel work to vary the coloring a
bit.
Next up- the Pegasus
kit in an Italian scheme to match it's propellor..
Regards all,
Keith
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