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Germany, 1939 - the early model Emil Bf-109 E-1 appears in mid-1939 and quickly becomes one of the most potent weapons in the Luftwaffe.



After having a good time building an E-7 Trop from the new Beacon Models kit, I fancied another build - Will Jayne, the kit producer, posted some nice images of E-1 schemes which reminded me that the kit comes with the cannon-less wing on the sprue and that the Printscale Decals sheet I picked up for the Emil includes two E-1 models in the lovely early scheme with a low waistband colouring.



While checking the veracity of these, I also found a third scheme I could assemble from spare decals too and suddenly I had a production line of machine gun armed 109s underway, which go together very quickly and easily.



Masks included with the boxing makes canopy framing so much easier.



I have fancied trying a production line approach and the painting aspect definitely proved its worth, requiring just one round of research on paint colours and splinter schemes.

Profiles for these three airframes varied on their choice of splinter version, I opted for the more complex early scheme as all three airframes were likely painted before September.

Minimal weathering was applied because these were quite new aircraft and operating from their home bases with good maintenance support. Some exhaust marks and gun dust were created with water colour pencils, but are not particularly visible.



Decals went on fine - the white tail scheme was assembled from the spares box.

I then went ahead with a few simple vignettes using a selection of figures from eBay seller 3djson and added plaques from nameitplates.co.uk - with this, the scenes were complete.



Germany, August 1939
Aircraft of 6/JG26 are taking part in an exercise with their specially painted tail fins. They have attracted the attention of a lot of Luftwaffe hierarchy eager to view their newest weapon. A rather bored looking pilot waits for yet another senior officer to be shown the flight line before he can take off on a flight.

The Mercedes G5 is from Paint and Glue Minatures.







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Germany, September 1939
With war declared, pilots of 6.J/186(T) - future aircraft carrier pilots - sit in readiness in the late summer sun for reports of RAF bomber incursions over the Northern German coast.













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Germany, December 1939
In the freezing winter weather, a rather unenthusiastic pilot of II/JGr. 101 arrives at his 109 ready for a patrol over the northern coastal cities.

The open canopy on this aircraft was created using the clear parts from an Armory models 109 kit.











A fun project and making a production line was definitely an efficient way to build these small kits. Thanks for reading.