1:48 Buffalo B239

The Brewster B-239, an American machine with a Finnish career

The stubby barrel-shaped fighter did not make much of a name for itself in American naval service, but its export variant without carrier equipment found a second life in the north of Europe. Finland bought forty-four of them and flew them for long years from the winter of 1940; a lighter airframe, experienced pilots and tactics built on pairs turned a slow aircraft into a surprisingly successful weapon, with a kill ratio no later type in Finnish colors repeated. The pilots liked the machine so much that they gave it a nickname referring to a pearl. A radial engine provided the power and the fuel load lasted for a long patrol over lake country; the weak point remained the rate of climb, which pilots got around by fighting in the horizontal plane.

The contents in detail

Outlines of the glazing are prepared for the view from outside as well as from inside, plus three national insignia, that is more markings than most sets in this line carry. The cut is based on the moldings of Classic Airframes.

Once the masks come off, even out the shade

After unmasking, the area around the frames is often a shade different from the rest of the fuselage: the outer coats lay over the film there and part of the mist dispersed elsewhere. Do not try to level it locally, that only makes the patch bigger. Thin the base shade to the edge of transparency and go over the whole part in one continuous veil from nose to tail. The light then breaks the same way everywhere and the boundary between the masked and the free area disappears.