Best Ju52 in 1/72?

[dfqweofekwpeweiop4]

As the title says, what's the best ju52 kit in 1/72?

thanks

Mike

[CarLos]

Without the kits nearby I would say Heller, although the Italeri kit is also good. Forget Airfix, as it is outdated. None is perfect, if you want to count corrugations. And there are so many different versions, civil and military, that you must almost always put something of your own - at least twist the fin by 2º to port.

carlos

[Seahawk]

As the title says, what's the best ju52 kit in 1/72?

thanks

Mike

There's not much choice: AFAIK just the ancient Airfix kit plus relatively more recent ones from Heller and Italeri (latter in several boxings). ISTR a comparative review in an old issue of Scale Models that came out in favour of the Heller over the Italeri. So Heller is what I bought and I have to say those all-important corrugations are moulded very crisply. Might be difficult to find nowadays though. Haven't seen the Italeri one to look at. Nor would I claim to be a Ju 52 expert.

[3DStewart]

Both the Italeri and Heller kits have strengths and weaknesses, but in my view the cabin windows are all too small on the Heller kit.

I would go for the Italeri version, which has also been issued with floats and as a civil version. It's the only kit to give the option of the turreted machine gun above the cockpit and it also comes with skis.

Stewart

Edited January 13, 2012 by 3DStewart

[Don McIntyre]

I can't say anything about the Heller kit, but when I built the Italeri kit, 20-odd years ago, I don't remember any building issues. You do need to be a little careful when adding the upper fuselage section to the fuselage assembly, but nothing a little care won't, well, take care of. IIRC the seam line was in between corrugations, so when painted it was nearly invisible.

[Jennings Heilig]

Has the Heller kit been available in recent memory? I believe it dates from the late 1970s, and I've only ever seen it on the shelf back in those days. I think I bought one in about 1981 or so at Polk's in NYC. The Italeri kit is perfectly acceptable, and much easier to find.

Edited January 13, 2012 by Jennings Heilig

[Lothian man]

Has the Heller kit been available in recent memory? I believe it dates from the late 1970s, and I've only ever seen it on the shelf back in those days. I think I bought one in about 1981 or so at Polk's in NYC. The Italeri kit is perfectly acceptable, and much easier to find.

The Heller kit shouldn't be that hard to find, as it was indeed reissued in recent years, maybe 2000-2005, I'm not sure, but at any rate before the Airfix-Heller split of recent years. It came out a bit before the time Heller kits more or less vanished from model shops, at least as en masse stocks.

The moody box top of this issue showed a winter camouflaged plane against a skyscape - a bit Where Eagles Dare in spirit if not in actual colour pattern. There is at least one copy on e*bay at the moment. I've seen it knocking around occasionally at shows.

I would need to go stash-diving to check the kit's exact status as regards markings and options, and to rummage around in file boxes for the comparative review, but I can say off the top of my head that this article was indeed in Scale Models - one of an excellent series of articles on modelling inter-war civil airliners from the then available kits by Bill Matthews if memory serves. I also recall that the Heller kit has rather finer corrugations than the perhaps rather coarse ones on the Italeri kit.

[warhawk]

I have measured the Heller 1/72nd kit and foun out it is spot-on, except the engines, that are a couple of mm closer to the fuselage than they should be. This small error made some to believe that the kit is actually in 75th scale.

As I was not ready to ruin all the ribbed surface to cut them out, this is the only thing I didn't modify on my model

As You can see, it's a very good base for slapping in some extra detail

[CarLos]

As You can see, it's a very good base for slapping in some extra detail

Congratulations Aleksandar for the fabulous model!

I opened the boxes of my kits - Heller, Italeri and Airfix - and there are many detail differences between the two first. Fin and rudder highness, wing position, angle of the cowlings... The Airfix floats are also much larger and very different from those in the Italeri kit (or Italaerei, as it was written at the time). I wonder if they have any resemblance with reality.

I'll try to make a deeper comparison between the kits but it takes time. By the way, Bill Matthews shared a kit comparison in the Wings of Peace group some time ago but it was published in Mushroom Monthly 9/8. There is also a comparison in the AJaKs book, but it is too simplified.

Carlos

[Flankerman]

Is there a kit of the Ju-52 ?????? - only seven were built.

All the rest were three-engined Ju-52/3m's

Sorry...... I'll get my coat.....

Ken

PS - Don't get me started on Tupolev SB2's !!

[smackers]

Modelmaking.eu have sprue shots and pics of the Heller Ju-52/3m here though it does appear to be currently out of production so the Italeri version seems to be the obvious and more available choice to go for.

Mike

[Vingtor]

All the rest were three-engined Ju-52/3m's

No, thet were not! The designation should be Ju 52, or Ju 52/3m - without the hyphen.

If you start nitpicking, don't introduce inaccuracies.

Nils

[Panoz]

Congratulations Aleksandar for the fabulous model!

I opened the boxes of my kits - Heller, Italeri and Airfix - and there are many detail differences between the two first. Fin and rudder highness, wing position, angle of the cowlings... The Airfix floats are also much larger and very different from those in the Italeri kit (or Italaerei, as it was written at the time). I wonder if they have any resemblance with reality.

I'll try to make a deeper comparison between the kits but it takes time. By the way, Bill Matthews shared a kit comparison in the Wings of Peace group some time ago but it was published in Mushroom Monthly 9/8. There is also a comparison in the AJaKs book, but it is too simplified.

Carlos

Bill Matthews also did the comparison article in Scale Models and from what I remember, according to him the Airfix floats were not wrong, they just represented a different earlier type.

Ah and since nobody mentioned it so far, Heller also includes optional parts for the AAC 1 version.

These were used in Indochina postwar for various tasks, including bombing missions against the Viet Minh; there is a video of one of them "in action" with bombs carried in underfuselage bomb racks. If only I could find it again...

Panoz (Who still remembers building the Airfix kit (also did the Heller one later) as the aircraft from "Where eagles dare" when he was 12. Time flies, doesn't it? )

Edited January 15, 2012 by Panoz

[CarLos]

Just started a comparison here

Carlos