Originally built for SAMI and appeared in the July 2006 issue.

Since then Special Hobby (and Flying Machines) have issued a whole range of G.55 kits in both 1/72 and 1/48 scale.

This is the second Special Hobby release of a 1/72 G.55 kit. This time it's the early Serie 1 Sottoserie 0 variant, which had the original armament configuration of 2 pairs of guns positioned above and below the engine, with no wing armament. The alterations to be made to the kit are to replace the entire nose and rudder sections with the resin parts supplied in the kit. The rudder is a simple enough operation, but the nose does require a fair amount of trail fitting before a snug fit is achieved. As there is a noticeable join on the real plane between these parts, a smooth join line should not be attempted, just a neat one. Shell ejector fairings are also supplied in resin, to be applied to the lower wing in front of the radiator. Also supplied is the DF loop aerial.

The nicely detailed resin cockpit (with etch brass detail) is a snug fit and can be built after the fuselage halves are joined together.

As is usually the case with this type of kit, the trailing edges of each wing part will need to be thinned down considerably to avoid an ugly, thick trailing edge. The resin wheel well insert will also need to be trimmed back along its upper leading edge to allow the top wing parts to meet the one piece lower wing. I glued the top wing parts to the fuselage first (to get a neater join) before gluing the lower wing in place. Some filler was still required along the leading edge of the wings immediately in front of the wheel wells. The rest of the assembly is relatively easy, just a bit of care needs to be taken with the vacform canopy to get a good fit. The main undercarriage doors are in two parts, but in reality they were a very close fit, enough to look as if it was just one piece.

Special Hobby have provided decals for three schemes. They are for the prototype, which had the "lizard" scheme, a very short lived Regia Aeronautica G.55 and an ANR German type scheme. The decals are nicely printed and settle down well, with no sign of silvering.

What with a possible two seater G55B as a future release, plus the Flying Machines torpedo variant, this is good addition to the range, all based on the same moulds. Although it's limited run characteristics will require a fair amount of input from the modeller, they're still the best G.55 kits on the market, that is until a decent 1/48th model comes along!