The Little World

And I am not talking about elephants here…

How often do you get to see South Africans flying overhead? Or landing on a local field? Or eating things off your lawn? Those of you who live in Perth know that the chances are quite good – we have seen many South African migrants over the years and in some suburbs the sound of them fills the air.

So it might have been in Africa just before WW2 – the South Africans needed airliners and as other options were being made for the UK, they took their chances on Junkers 86’s from Germany. 17 airliners and one bomber were sent out and eventually were taken over when the war started by the SAAF.

Italeri has made civil and military versions of this aircraft – and I am riding to hounds to find the airliner version in old kits. In the meantime, this modern kit in bomber version very conveniently has SAAF markings ready-made.

The kit is well up to Italeri standards with clean sprue trees and little sign of flash or sink marks. The instructions are clear diagrams and the decal sheet wonderful.

The colour call-out for the various versions lists a name, an Ialeri paint number, and an FS number. I have used an FS colour swatch set to match the number, though I doubt the look of it. However, it will be slightly different than standard UK camouflage markings and I need not use soft edging.

There is plenty of scope to use the kit as a Swedish, Austrian, or Portuguese aircraft as well, and if the airliner version ever turns up on a table it is scheduled to be Manchuokan straight away.