Academy 1/72 Bf-109G-14, by Scott Van AKen

The G-14 arrived in July 1944 at the invasion front over France. It represented an attempt to create a standard type, incorporating many changes which had been introduced during production of the G-6, and which led to a plethora of variants, plaguing decentralized mass production. The standardization attempt proved to be a failure, but overall the type offered improved combat performance, as MW 50 power boosting water injection (increasing output to 1,800 PS (1,775 hp, 1,324 kW), the clear-view Erla

Haube was now standard installation. Top speed was 568 km/h (353 mph) at sea level, and 665 km/h (413 mph) at 5 km (16,400 ft) altitude. A high-altitude fighter, designated G-14/AS was also produced with the DB 605ASM high-altitude engine. The ASM engine was built with a larger capacity supercharger, and had a higher rated altitude, and correspondingly the top speed of the G-14/AS was 560 km/h (348 mph) at sea level, and 680 km/h (422 mph) at 7,5 km (24,600 ft) altitude. There was increasing tendency to use plywood on some less vital parts e.g. on a taller tailfin/rudder unit, pilot seat or instrument panel. A cautious estimate based on the available records suggest that about 5,500 G-14s and G-14/AS were built.

Not that many G-14 kits have been produced in 1/72 scale. The earliest is probably what Heller boxed as a 109K, and more recently, Hasegawa and Fine Molds have done this version. Academy broke no new ground on this one, choosing to go with the separate tail section as is often the case with newer 109 kits. This allows the fuselage to be used for a number of similar variants.

For a cockpit, you get a floor with rear bulkhead, some inner fuselage detail along with a separate stick and seat. There are rudder pedal shapes molded on the floor and a box in front of the seat that is supposed to be the cannon breech housing. The kit does provide a separate instrument panel and trim wheels for the fuselage interior.

The upper fuselage breech bulges are separate as is the upper cowling deck itself. Exhaust and their shields are installed from the outside, which I like. Landing gear legs and gear doors are separate as are the one piece main wheels. The kit includes the Morane antenna and aileron mass balances. There is a drop tank rack and the choice of two tank designs. The kit includes a separate windscreen and canopy. A section of head armor is provided to place inside the Erla Haube canopy. There is no radio mast but there is a DF loop antenna. The prop is a single piece that fits into a two piece spinner/backing plate.

Instructions are well done with painting information in generic and RLM color shades. Markings are provided for two planes. One is the all white box art aircraft with yellow lower cowling and fuselage band painted in overall white uppers and RLM 76 undersides. This is apparently Erich Hartmann's plane with JG 53 in Feb of 1945 in Hungary. The other is a JG 11 plane from early 1945 in Germany. It is shown as painted in RLM 74/75/76 with a yellow fuselage band. There is a spiral for the spinner and a yellow band also covers the very forward nose behind the spinner. The decal sheet is nicely done, but does not include the swastika.

My kit was sent to me direct from Korea about a dozen years back so still includes the small tube of glue.

First step is to open up various holes. There are those in the wing for the centerline rack and the antenna. One could also do the wing cannon, but I'm not sure how many G-1s actually had this option so I left them closed. The instructions do not show them being used. I also assembled the cockpit floor, seat and control stick. This kit comes with a separate tail section and while the instructions showed this being first completely built prior to attaching, I decided to attach each side to the fuselage half first.

Next I painted all the interior bits RLM 66, including the instrument panel and inner fuselage halves. There is some detail there that was later drybrushed with white. I also made tape seat belts. The inner gear doors and the wheel wells as well as the gear struts were painted RLM 02, the prop with RLM 70 and the spinner/backing plate with black. Though I may have to repaint portions of these later, it helps to get the colors on them as early as possible.

The fuselage halves were put together. One has to be careful during this as the interior makes fitting them a bit difficult. I had no issues with the 'pre-attached' tail sections. The wings had already been assembled and those were attached. Fit of the wings is excellent. Same goes for the tailplanes which have tabs of different sizes so you will not install them reversed. These pieces look a bit too square on the end to me.

I then filled the wheel wells with Silly Putty and painted the underside RLM 76. One the upper section, the cowling piece was glued on. This leaves some rather large gaps. The gun covers were next, followed by the supercharger intake. Gun covers don't fit all that well in the back. The clear bits were masked, the head armor installed and these were glued in place.

COLORS & MARKINGS

The scheme I chose for this was easy as there are just not a lot of 1/72 G-14 decals in my collection. I used the new BarracudaCals sheet #BC72232 as it had Franz Weinhausen's plane from IV./JG 4 in the fall of 1944. It is in standard RLM 74/75/76 with the side mottles being dots of various sizes in the upper colors. Since the sheet does not come with the black/white/black Reich Defense band, I had to paint it on. I truly suck at doing these sorts of thing, but got it to where it was acceptable.

Then I clear coated the airframe and after removing the Silly Putty from the gear wells, attached the main landing gear legs and the tailwheel. Were I to build another of these kits, I'd carve a bit on the attachment point of the left landing gear leg as even though it is attached properly, it allowed the axle to be out of alignment.

I used the BarracudaCals markings for the unique options and insignia. The swastika is in sections and a bit of a pain to attach, but eventually these were in place. I used kit decals for the data markings and such so I could leave the BC markings for other builds. I put on enough markings to make it look busy.

With that done, I attached the gear doors, wheels, aileron balances, Morane antenna, DF loop, and exhausts. The exhaust shields will need a bit of trimming to fit properly as the tab seems a bit too long. Also needing trimming was the exhaust section itself, but it did not take much. The prop assembly went well and this is designed to be added at the end so it can spin. The airframe was then provided a bit of touch-up painting before being given a matte clear coat. After that it was simple matter of removing the masking from the clear bits, attaching the radio mast and EZ-line, gluing on the drop tank and putting on some pastel exhaust stain.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite the kit looking a bit odd in some places (tailplanes and the lower cowling), it still looks very much like a 109G-14. It really is not that difficult a build and the fit is quite good though it doesn't hurt to do some test fitting to be sure. I am not sure if this has been surpassed by the recent AZ Models kits, but it is not expensive and worth picking up.

KIT #:	1653
PRICE:	$6.95 when new
DECALS:	Two options
REVIEWER:	Scott Van Aken
NOTES:	2001 boxing