Special Hobby 1/48 Arado Ar-96B-2

TOOTH-CUTTER FOR THE JAGDWAFFE

One of a handful of small companies with aircraft design and manufacturing experience that would become the nucleus of the German aircraft industry after Hitler came to power, Arado Flugzeugwerke G.m.b.H. became one of the most important aircraft manufacturing companies of the Third Reich despite the fact that only a very few of the airplanes that came off the production line were from designs initiated by the company. It began life as the Warnemuende company during the First World War, changing its name to Arado-Handelsgesellschaft in 1925. During the 1920s and early 1930s, the design office was prolific, creating the S.I primary trainer in 1925 and following it a year later with the SC.I and SC.II advanced trainers. German policy during this period was to secretly keep pace with current military aviation technology abroad, and this produced the SD.I single seat fighter in 1928, to be followed by the SD.II and SD.III fighter biplanes and the SSD.I float fighter by 1929. When the Nazis came to power, the company had just produced the Ar-64 single-seat fighter, which would be immediately followed by the Ar-65, the first fighter equipment of the still-secret Luftwaffe. With a major infusion of funds from the German government, the company came under the control of the RLM in 1934, and the design office became deeply involved with development and production of the Ar-68 series. Despite the fact this airplane looked ungainly in comparison with the elegant Heinkel He-51 biplane, the Ar-68 was decidedly superior, the equal of any fighter biplane currently in service in 1935.

Unfortunately, Arado stuck to traditional designs at a time when a revolution was happening in aircraft development. The company's contender for the new Luftwaffe monoplane fighter was completely outclassed by its competitors from Focke-Wulf, Heinkel and Messerschmitt. By 1938, Arado's main product was the Messerschmitt Bf-109, the winner of that competition. The Ar-69 primary trainer came off second to the Fw-44 Steiglitz, the Ar-76 light fighter/trainer was beaten by the Fw-56 Stosser, and the Ar-77 twin engine trainer/utility aircraft lost to the Fw-58 Weihe.

The fortunes of the company took an upturn in late 1938 with the Luftwaffe's decision to adopt the Ar-96A as the service's advanced flight trainer. The airplane had been designed in 1936-37, and was an elegant two-seater with an enclosed cockpit that had good visibility for both pilots, powered by an Argus As 410A-1 12 cylinder inverted-vee air-cooled engine of 465 h.p. The airplane was tractable and supremely maneuverable. Unfortunately for Arado, the company was so deeply committed to license production of other companies' designs that AGO had to take over production of the Ar-96 until mid-1941, when production was shifted Avia in Czechoslovakia. The main production type was the Ar-96B-2, which was armed with a single 7.72mm machine gun so that it could double as a gunnery trainer. Avia was joined by Letov in 1944.

The airplane was used as a trainer by the Hungarian Air Force as well as the Luftwaffe. Post-war, it continued in production in Czechoslovakia until the mid 1950s, being used as the standard trainer for the Czech Air Force until the late 1950s.

Until this release from Special Hobby, the only way a 1/48 modeler could add an Ar-96 to their collection was by making a model from the Karo-As vacuform, which appeared in the 1980s from West Germany. While this company has an excellent reputation with its products, the fact it was a trainer and a vacuform worked against any wide sales here in the U.S. There was also a 1/72 Ar-96 made by Heller in the 1970s which is still available and can be highly recommended for quality.