Kit: No. SH72110
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Special Hobby, from Squadron Mail Order, 972-242-8663, www.squadron.com
Price: $27
Comments: Mixed media, 67 parts (26 injection-molded, 21 resin, 17 photoetched, 2 vacuum-formed, 1 photo film) decals
Pros: Excellent resin parts, nice photoetched details, interesting subject
Cons: Difficult construction, poor parts fit, landing gear too short

The Fiat G.55 is regarded as Italy’s best fighter of World War II, superior to the British Spitfire Mk.IX and both the German Bf 109 and Fw 190. In the hands of a skilled pilot, the G.55 was more than a match for U.S. P-38s, P-47s, and P-51s, especially at altitudes above 18,000 feet. Production of the G.55 continued after the war, and the aircraft was exported to Egypt and Syria in the late 1940s.

The Special Hobby Fiat G.55 “sotoseries 0” is the second version of the aircraft released and includes resin parts to backdate the kit. It offers a nicely cast resin cockpit with separate side panels. I assembled, painted, and weathered the cockpit before I assembled the fuselage halves but found that even with considerable sanding, it was too wide for the fuselage. I resolved the problem with my motor tool and a cutting burr by thinning the fuselage sides until the cockpit fit.

Once the fuselage was assembled, I cut away the engine cowling and attached the resin nose. I cut the cowling along the panel line with a razor saw until I reached the leading edge of the wing, then used a scribing tool to peel away the plastic around the curved wing. After careful sanding and test-fitting, I glued the resin engine in place from the inside using gap-filling super glue.

The next test came from the wing assembly. A nicely cast, one-piece resin wheel well is supposed to fit inside the wing halves, but is simply too tall. By grinding the insides of the wings and sanding the well, I was eventually able to close the wing halves.

After attaching the wings to the fuselage and filling the resulting gaps, I cut the vertical stabilizer from the model and attached the resin tail fin. This was the simplest alteration I made to the model.

I attempted to install the tiny resin bulges to the top of the fuselage but quickly lost two of them. I replaced them with drops of white glue and sanded them into their oval shapes after they dried. I added many of the small photoetched parts, but several were so small they were impossible to work with, so I left them off.

I primed the model with Testors gray figure primer and painted the camouflage with Testors Acryl acrylics. I sprayed the model with German RLM 74, 75, and 76 as prescribed in the instructions. The kit decals responded well to a mild setting solution. The “sotoserie 0” variant saw limited service with the Regia Aeronautica, so I chose “Yellow 7,” an Aviazione Nazionale Republicana (ANR) aircraft that operated with the German Luftwaffe in 1944.

After the paint dried, I cut and attached the vacuum-formed canopy and added the photoetched parts to the canopy frame. The instructions make no reference to opening the canopy, but with a resin cockpit and photoetched instrument panel and seatbelts, I didn’t want the details to go unnoticed.

I finished the model by attaching the landing gear and antenna. I had to cut almost 1/8″ from the landing-gear doors, since the struts are considerably shorter than the two-part doors. This left the model sitting too low. In hindsight, I should have extended the gear struts with brass tubing.

I was shocked to learn I spent nearly 45 intense hours on this model; the vast majority of that time was spent grinding and fitting the resin parts. Although there’s nothing terribly wrong with the kit, the major alterations and grinding make this model best suited to those with experience. Aside from the short landing gear, which is partially my fault, the model scales perfectly with the dimensions provided in Nico Sgarlato’s Italian Aircraft of World War II.

– Jeff Herne