Special Hobby 1/48 SG 38 by Roland Sachsenhofer

Special Hobby's 1/48 scale
DFS SG 38 Schulgleiter

by Roland Sachsenhofer

DFS SG 38 Schulgleiter

Hobby Boss' 1/32 Spitfire Mk.Vb Trop is available online from Squadron

Description

Ash wood, linen and a certain amount of wiring - not much more is needed to produce one of the most important gliding planes in history.

Production numbers are impressive; about 8700 examples of this initial trainer have been built in various countries from 1938 onwards until the 1950´s. This number has been probably overrun by those SG 38 that have been erected by flying clubs and private persons. Edmund Schneider from “Schneider in Grunau”, inventor of various ingenious glider planes and father of the SG 38, sold the drawings to everyone feeling able to erect a SG 38 by himself.

The Special Hobby kit is a pure pleasure to build; the parts are crisp and full of detail, which is enhanced by a small etched parts sheet.

I did get further etched parts from Brengun, which included amongst others, the seat harness and a bunch of deviation rollers needed to get a proper look.

Most of the modelling work was dedicated to get a good representation of the translucent nature of the linen and, of course, to get a proper imitation of the wood construction.

Another fiddly but not all too difficult step was doing the rigging.

My model shows a Czech SG 38 from the early post war years. It was used by the “Czech National Flying Club” CNA, section Nachod in northern Bohemia.

On a few pictures you can see the SG-38 pilot figure from CMK. Originally depicting a fledgling flyer from a Nazi-flying club, he was presented with a communist-red scarf made from metal foil.