Late 1943, a cold but clear morning somewhere in the south of Germany, a young Luftwaffe pilot and his even younger trainee are preparing to board their Ar-96 B-3 for a ground attack training flight when a dispatch rider from from the command post arrives with an updated flight plan.
This build was part of my 12 Builds of Christmas project - this started as a desire to take a break from a number of very complicated builds that were clogging up my bench and sapping the mojo, instead to focus on 12 straight forward builds on straight forward vignette bases - using a production line technique for efficiency.
I started on the 12th December with the original plan to complete all the builds by the 22nd January IPMS Bolton show. As it was, the project took a lot longer, as one might expect. Instead I ended up splitting the project in half and completing the first six during February of which this was one.
The kit is from Mark 1 Models and comes in several boxings with a variety of Luftwaffe trainer and postwar Czech schemes.
I am going to be making this kit as a B-3 trainer, fitted with a machine gun and gun camera bulge for ground attack training. I could find scant reference to this variant and no photo for the profile, so just followed the kit instructions.
A standard short-run output from this studio, the kit is pleasantly detailed, although sometimes in this scale just having seats in the cockpit is a bonus!
The fuselage halves proved rather difficult to pair up properly and needed some sanding and firm holding in place.
After a Christmas break, which required the dispersal of my dining room table based modelling bench, I fitted the undercarriage and a few parts on the side to represent the B-3. Although its not clear if the type carried these, I also fitted the bomb racks included in the kit, ready for weapons training flights, perhaps for rookie Stuka pilots?
In an act of dumb-bumery I realised I had closed up the fuselage sans seat belts and panel decals. I decided that trying to fit Tamiya tape belts would be too awkward, but managed to find some decal belts instead which fitted fine.
The Arado joined the pantheon of models.
The paint scheme was delightfully simple, so much so I apparently did not photograph the process or decalling - the Mark 1 Models sheets are always nice and easy to use though.
Here she awaits a coat of matt varnish.
All twelve of the aircraft are to be based on my new standard base type - 10x10cm canvas boards with masked edges to provide a white border. All of my models are intended to be shown on model show displays, so having a distinctive base makes for a nice consistency and good visibility, it also makes them much more convenient for transporting.
This base was painted first with a cracked mud effect, then snow paste from AK Interactive, carefully brushed to give a varied texture.
I decided the scene needed a little more life so I found and made up this little whitemetal BMW motorbike from Arrowhead Minatures.
Figures are from Presier, these 1/160 figures are small but wonderfully detailed and if not placed alongside the chunkier resin or whitemetal figures they look fine.
The Deutschbahn conductors hats make for handy Luftwaffe figures when painted up appropriately.
(this figure didn't make the final cut, being re-cast late in production)
The final part of the build was to add the propellor. I left this until last as it is a more delicate resin piece and it seemed most practical to add it in-situ when the plane was permanently glued down.
The Ar-96 has a very distinctive 'lemon squeezer' propellor hub that isn't well represented in the kit, but Retrokit of Belgium make a nice resin replacement.
In lieu of exact information I painted the prop in RLM70 and added the figures, with some snow trailed onto the wings but no other real weathering as photos of the Arados during wartime showed them in good condition.
Thanks for reading this far, enjoy the final photos
