Heinkel He 119A (Luftwaffe)

Valom, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by John Miller

The Heinkel He-119 was an experimental single-propeller monoplane with two coupled engines, developed in Germany.

A private venture by Heinkel to test radical ideas by the Günter brothers, the He-119 was originally intended to act as an unarmed reconnaissance bomber capable of eluding fighters due to its high performance.

(Edited from Wikipedia)

As with most kits from this manufacturer, this is a limited production kit so extra effort will be required to deal with flash, parts clean up, and trial fitting. The inscribed surface details are even and scale appropriate for the most part. Unfortunately, some lines are a bit rough or partially filled-in so refreshing with a scriber will most probably be required. Despite the unconventional design of the He-119, the parts layout and engineering of this 1/72nd version are quite conventional suggesting a straightforward build (with a few caveats, below).

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Thumbnail panels:

Assembly begins with the cockpit where the provided detail is sufficient for this scale. The PE instrument panels with acetate instrument faces will look quite nice. Ditto that for the nicely molded crew sets and PE seat harnesses. How much of this detail will be visible through the slightly distorted nose glazing is an open question (see below).

Of note, the builder is directed to glue the propeller shaft to the cockpit bulkhead during the early stages (Step 2) of the assembly. This may cause alignment issues with the nose glazing/propeller hub that are installed much later in the assembly sequence (Step 7). Perhaps initially affixing the shaft with a small amount of white glue will allow any alignment issues to be addressed before the assembly is finalized with CA (or similar).

Once the assembled cockpit is trapped between the fuselage halves, the wings, comprised of left and right, lower and upper halves, are next in sequence. Wheel well detail is “craptacularly” sparse (Thank you, Tim Nelson) so a little “gizomitizing” with styrene stock and parts from the spares box will go a long way to sprucing up an area that will be visible to the more motivated viewers when the model is assembled.

The main gear wheels/tires are nicely molded but halved so extra work will be required here. The main gear legs and wheel well doors are nicely molded but a bit thick.

The nose glazing is clear but a bit on the thick side. In addition, there is a slight distortion within the nose glazing caused by the considerable framing that is molded in.

I suspect that once the framing is painted the final result will look appropriate but this is an open question.

Markings

The decals, by Valom, are crispy printed with good registration and color density.

Markings are provided for one airframe as follows:

• Heinkel He-119A (EN+RC), Rechlin, July 1939.

Valom should be applauded, once again, for being willing to kit esoteric, lesser known, but nonetheless historically significant, aircraft. With such a simple layout and low parts count this should be a straightforward build. There will be extra work required for parts clean up and the fitting of major (and some minor) assemblies but such is the nature of the “limited production” beast. So, for those with a little experience and/or patience, highly recommended!

For more on this review visit Modelpaintsolutions.com.

Review kit provided by my retirement fund, again.

Text and Images Copyright © 2020 by John Miller
Page Created 14 August, 2020
Last updated 14 August, 2020

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