1:32 Bf 109F-4

The desert Bf 109 and sand in the engine

The tropical modification of this version marked the aircraft more than it seems at first glance. A sand filter was added to the intake, a desert survival kit into the fuselage, and the mechanics had to clean the engines practically every day. With machines equipped like this JG 27 operated over Libya and Egypt, a unit still accompanied today by the name of its most successful pilot and by the dispute over how many victories can really be credited to him.

The North African sky had its own marking. A white band was painted around the rear part of the fuselage and the wingtips were white as well, whereas machines in the east carried yellow for the same purpose. The upper color was a sand shade which faded in the sun within a single season to a light grayish tone, so the same aircraft looked different after half a year from the day it arrived from Europe.

The package offers masks for the outer as well as the inner side of the glazing and two masks for the national insignia. The item is cut to the Hasegawa molding.

On faded shades: lift the mask off only after the last covering coat has dried. Pigment residues are far harder to remove from the frames of the cockpit than from smooth paint.

Desert builds tend to have many layers: base, tropical finish, overspray, dust and finally a matte coat. The mask has to survive all of them, so it is not advisable to apply it to the part before the sanding and filling of the fuselage is finished.

Tropical Bf 109s could moreover be told by the fittings for a sun shade and by traces of sand on the lower surface of the wings. Details of this kind are easy to look up today, but twenty years ago builders still guessed them from a very few photographs.