Focke-Wulf Fw 190 D-9

AZ Models, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by Glen Porter

Airfix's 1/72 scale Beaufighter TF.X will be available online from Squadron.com

The A series Focke-Wulfs had always suffered from a loss of power at altitude and the D-9 was a result of a long series of experiments to cure this fault.

They coupled a large Junkers V12 motor to an A series fuselage and created what some called the ‘Long Nose Dora’, arguably one of the best Luftwaffe fighters of the war.

I can hear people asking “Do we want another D-9”? Well, yes we do. The best D-9s in the scale, Tamiya and Hasagawa, are very good but not perfect and if someone else can better those kits then we want it if not actually need it.

AZ Model's new 1/72 scale Fw 190 D-9 is packed into a fairly flimsy end-opening box with 57 mid grey plastic parts on two sprues, two clear parts on one sprue, two resin parts, decals for three aircraft and stencils for one, a four page instruction sheet with history, parts plan and 15 coloured build diagrams.

In most areas, the AZ kit is no better than the already available Tamiya and Hasegawa kits, although some would say it is as good, but one item, the resin wheel well is head and shoulders above them.

The A series had a roof panel in the centre of the well which separated the well from the cavity behind the engine. In the D series, this panel was left off and you could look up into the well and see right up into the fuselage and the rear of the motor plus supercharger and plumbing. For all the D9s in 1/72nd scale and, I believe, the larger scales as well, the manufacturers have taken the easy road and just placed the As roof panel in the well so I think this effort by AZ to show that cavity, is a first for the whole industry.

The odd thing is the way they suggest to fit it. They tell us to fit the well into the fuselage without the wings and before fitting the cockpit tub. It’s not obvious why so this will need some attention when building the kit. I’m inclined to want to fit the well to the wings and then fit the complete unit to the fuselage but this means fitting the tub first. Hmm, we will see.

AZ has improved the quality of their product from very ordinary short run kits to those that rival the best from Asia and they’ve done this with the help of metal coated moulds but they still have no alignment pins so care will need to be taken in construction.

The sprues are unmarked but they give us a parts plan which numbers the parts that will hopefully correspond to the instructions.

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Thumbnail panels:

The smaller of the two has the fuselage halves, nose gun cover, gear legs, exhausts and other small parts.

The other, larger sprue, holds the three piece wing, tail plane, cowling with open flaps, cockpit tub, gear doors, five piece prop, seat and instrument panel plus other small parts for inside and out. This sprue is direct from their D-11/13 kit which was a modification of the RZ kit of the same aircraft.

A couple of oddities on this sprue. They have given us two sets of prop blades, wide and wider. The narrower ones are for use in this kit with the wider ones for the later marks. Nothing unusual there, but then they give us another set of gear legs and exhausts. As I said above, this sprue is indirectly from the RZ models D-11/13 Now it would appear that RZ moulded the undercarriage leg too short and the exhausts with a lack of detail so AZ, instead of modifying the existing part, created new ones on the fuselage sprue. A little confusing but the parts plan clearly shows which to use.

Marking Options

Decals? Well they have given us three schemes, one from JG 26, Flensburg, May 1945 and two from JV 44, Red 1 and Red 3.

Frankly, I’m getting a bit sick of seeing JV 44 markings in almost every D-9 kit. Fortunately, I have plenty of D-9 markings.

There are some areas where the decals do not exactly match the art work. Nevertheless, the decals are well printed with very good register and should work well.

Yes, another interesting kit from AZ Models. They are one of the few who are making an effort to listen to their customers and correct faults. They don’t always get it right but at least they try.

Purchased by reviewer

Text Copyright © 2015 by Glen Porter
Images Copyright © 2015 by Brett Green
Page Created 29 September, 2015
Last updated 30 September, 2015

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