Focke-Wulf Fw 189A

by Patrick Chung

MPM's 1/48 scale Fw 189A is available online from Squadron.com

This is MPM's 1/48 scale Focke-Wulf Fw 189A.

The model I built was Fw 189A V1+7H (Werk Nr.2100). This machine was attached to 1.(H)32 based in Finland in 1943. It is the sole surviving sample of the type. Lufftwaffe pilot Uffz Lothar Mothes' survived the crash of this aircraft when his plane was shot down by Soviet Hurricanes near Soviet-Finland border on May 4, 1943.

The wreckage of V1+7H was found by the Soviets in 1991. The wreckage was then bought by a British private collector who raised a fund for restoration. In 1996, after more than half a century, Lothar Mothes was invited to Biggin Hill Airshow to be reunited with his original Fw 189.

I bought this kit few years ago when MPM first released it.

At first glance I was seriously unimpressed by the poor appearance of the kit parts. The non-metal moldings used by MPM at that time apparently had a fairly short production life. The plastic displayed very heavy flash and, due to inappropriate packing, many smaller parts were broken, including the major clear (injected) canopy parts.

Fortunately the people at MPM were kind enough to send replacement parts free of charge. I then purchased a superb book about the Fw 189 from Czech publisher MBI, which made it possible to superdetail the kit.

Construction of the kit stretched over two years. I scratch-built hundreds of tiny parts for the interior including resin cast duplicates of the ammunition magazine of the machine guns. These parts were not supplied with the Fw 189, so the master was borrowed from MPM's Ar-196.

The fit of major parts was relatively poor, especially the cockpit to wing center section and clear canopy to cockpit. For the latter I used Cyanoacrylic (super) glue to fill the seams and then sanded all over the area. The clear portion then wet sanded with progressively finer paper, back to 2000 grit, and then polished using Gunze rubbing compound, Tamiya wax and finally motor tool.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Review and Images Copyright © 2002 by Patrick Chung
Page Created 15 April, 2002
Last updated 04 June, 2007

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