1:32 Bf 109G-14AS

The suffix AS means a different engine and a different nose

The designation G-14/AS does not belong to the armament or the equipment but to the powerplant. A Daimler-Benz with a supercharger taken over from a larger engine went into the airframe, thanks to which the machine finally reached decent performance at the altitudes where American bomber formations operated. The larger blower, however, would not fit under the original cowling, and so the nose was given a new, smoother and bulkier shape with the air intake moved to the left side.

The late Gustav is paradoxically cleaner than the middle one

For a modeler this is one of the most interesting points of the whole family. The middle series with the fuselage heavy machine guns had a pair of conspicuous protrusions above the cowling, whereas the reworked nose of the AS version is continuously smooth again, because the breeches of the weapons were hidden under the bulkier cover. From the outside the late machine therefore looks sleeker than its predecessor of a year before. With it goes the tall wooden fin, a larger non-retracting tailwheel and above all the one-piece hinged canopy without a transverse brace, which replaced the old framed cockpit and opened up the pilot's view to the sides. Fewer frames mean fewer pieces of mask, but a greater demand for seating each one of them accurately.

Contents

According to the list the set is made up of cockpit masks in two layers, a pair of insignia and decals. Do not look for plastic parts or paints in the bag; a built machine is reckoned with.

Late crosses on the fuselage tended to be outline only, formed by narrow white or black bars, and it is precisely that shape that spraying through a mask manages far better than a decal, whose carrier film takes up the area inside the outline as well and shines on a matte finish.