Originally built for SAMI and appeared in the Jily 2006 issue.
This kit has the same clean and accurately moulded contents as the Flying Machines & Special Hobby 'B' bomber kit, with additional parts provided for the 'Artigliere', namely an injected moulded nose section and the forward section of the 102/20 cannon, which is cast in resin. A well printed decal sheet is provided with Regia Aeronautica and subsequent Luftwaffe markings. Only one was built, although more orders were planned for this naval gunship.
Having previously built the Special Hobby kit for this magazine, I was able to breeze through the construction, but with a few deviations this time around. I painted all interior surfaces in aluminium, including the wheel wells, after learning that interior green was most likely wrong. Photos in the Ali d'Italia book would support this hypothesis. The pilot seats are very well detailed and make up for the relative lack of detail found elsewhere, especially on the side walls, where there's none to be seen. The clear parts for the small fuselage windows were left off, as Kristal Kleer will be used instead.
After joining the two fuselage halves, not forgetting the bulkhead, wing spar and the fragile resin cast tail wheel, the nose section was found to be a perfect fit. Much better, in fact, than the the clear parts used for the 'B' version.
In order to get a neat fuselage to wing join, I glued the top wings in place first after a few test fits. The lower wings were glued in place afterwards. Each engine nacelle is in two halves, split vertically and are a good fit onto the wings. However, the front sections of each engine nacelle are more problematic, with filler needed no matter how much care is taken during assembly. With no really positive location points inside the cowling for the disappointing relief-moulded engines, I used sections of sprue to join them directly to the nacelle fronts. The cowlings will be mounted over each engine at a later stage. There are two sets of cowlings provided in the kit. One is the earlier configuration, with the exhaust outlet at the top. The other more conventional lower position is correct for this model. The wheels need to have their axles drilled out and reduced in depth to get a better fit onto the undercarriage units.
I used WEM paints for the colour scheme (verde oliva scruro 2 & grigio azzurro chiaro), following the fairly soft demarcation lines seen in the Ali d'Italia photos of the 'A'. The fuselage band and rudder cross are sprayed as well. After the rather minimal Regia Aeronautica markings from the decal sheet were applied, all the final detail items are glued in place, including a scratch built loop-aerial.
This is a very good model, but its limited production techniques may put off modellers who prefer such things as location pins and a more positive attachment for such parts as the wings and tail surfaces. The use of resin for items requiring a higher level of detail is a plus point of this model, the poor detail of the injection moulded engines less so. It's appeal maybe also be limited to modellers of Italian aircraft only, so its large size has to be taken into account, especially if they already have the 'B' in their collection.