Lybia, December 1942, a South African Air Force contingent visiting their Australian compatriots for a Christmas shindig, take the chance to pose in front of the 450 Squadron's pride and joy - a captured Hs-126 reconnaissance plane.
Thanks to my working rota, back in the middle of June I had four reasonably full days of modelling planned. I had been eyeing up an airliner model for some time to take advantage of the good weather - I usually rattle can in the garden - but alas the weather man put an end to that. So while browsing the shelves for inspiration I stumbled on this tiny box I had picked up at a show recently. Its a very basic kit from Zvezda intended for their wargaming series for which their 1/100 tank range is also designed. They have released a strange mix of aircraft, including the Fairey Battle and Po-2 in this scale which are very frustrating for 144th modellers as they are much wanted kits but require a lot of work to bring up to display standard.
As evidenced here, the aircraft completely lacks a cockpit area at all - just a flush fuselage join. Wouldn't be the worst thing in an aircraft with full cockpit, but with the Henshel's open design, its very evident. I hacked away at the thick plastic to open the cockpit area and from sheet styrene, cut a small floor and a seatback/panel area to fill the space between pilot and gunner.
Rudementary, but it fills the void. Pictures I can find suggest a lighter, maybe RLM02 colour for the interior, but I went with RLM66 to hide the absense of any detail. The canopy part itself is also incredibly thick and I had to open up the back which was originally solid.
Lots of putty needed around several of the joints. The kit was originally designed for push fit, so you'll often find generous fitting tolerances on these to aide tool-less production.
As to the paint scheme and setting. The kit comes with a small sheet of generic decals but I wanted to make something more interesting, so while browsing online I found this excellent account of a Henshel which fell into Australian hands in North Africa
https://www.magazine.ipmsnsw.com/37-1/henschel/henschel 1.htm
There are several photographs, but this one was most interesting to me as it is a combination of the original German mottled camo, with RAF roundels, Luftwaffe codes and a bright red nose!
I am not normally too interested in reproducing captured types as often they rarely if ever actually flew, but the photos and reports suggest this did fly in recon service for the Australians, as well as on joy rides for the mechanics.
RLM79 with some mottling seemed like the most likely interpretation of the original colour scheme.
Toned down with a filter.
Based on descriptions of the captured plane, I applied German crosses, overpainted with Middlestone (as the RAAF crew would likely have had available)
Then RAF Roundels from a Mark 1 Decals set were applied over the top, just leaving some of the German crosses and paint visible.
A classic 10cm canvas panel for the base.
I added a whitemetal jeep from Arrowhead Minatures in a generic sandy colour scheme, then used some figures from eBay seller 3djson - these are supposed to be a Panzer Crew, but I have painted them up to represent a visiting SAAF contingent.
With that, this little scene is complete.
