Re: He-70
MATCHBOX 1:72 HEINKEL HE 70F-2/HE 70G-1/HE 170A
 Reviewer: Myself (smakr@bigpond.com)
Kit Built + Review submitted: 10 October 2001
Model photos submitted by Peter Ness
Aircraft:
The Heinkel He 70 was designed to a 1932 Lufthansa specification for an aircraft to compete with the Lockheed Orions operated by other carriers, such as Swissair. It was then developed as a fast, four-passenger mail aircraft to meet a maximum speed requirement of around 300 km/h.
The airframe was sleek and aerodynamically efficient with an elevated cockpit offset to port for the pilot, a navigator/radio operator sitting below and behind the pilot, and a passenger cabin with four seats in facing pairs fore and aft of the cabin. One of the features of the aerodynamics was the engine, which was powered by a BMW VI 630-hp 470-kW engine, cooled by ethylene-glycol, requiring a smaller radiator and thus reducing drag.
The prototype He 70 had fixed landing gear and faired-over wheel wells and first flew at the end of 1932. Early the following year the aircraft achieved a level speed of 376 km/h, and then a second prototype was used by a Lufthansa pilot to set eight speed records. Production He 70A entered service with the Lufthansa airline in 1934.
Introduction of a BMW 559-kW engine produced the He 70D military communications version, and it's civilian counterpart had a lengthened fuselage and was designated the He 70G. The He 70G was operated by Lufthansa and was crewed only by a pilot who sat in a cockpit relocated on the fuselage centreline.
In addition to the He 70D other military models comprised the He 70E with a crew of two, a 7.92-mm MG 17 machine gun in the rear cockpit and the ability to carry a 300 kilo bombload. Next came the He 70F which was produced in two versions; the He 70F-1 long-range reconnaissance variant and the He 70F-2 of which 18 were sent to the Legion Condor in the Spanish civil war in 1936.
Heinkel developed a further variant the He 170 for Hungary in 1937 and this differed in having a Mistral-Major engine capable of 679-kW. Around 20 served with a long-range reconnaissance group in Hungary until 1941. The Kit:
Purchasing this kit was a case of "I must have this plane in model form" than having the kit itself and I was delighted that both a kit of this most unique looking aircraft had been manufactured and that I was successful after a long search in being able to obtain it. But of course it had to be a Matchbox kit, and this is the only way you can get an injection molded He 70 in this scale so there wasn't much choice. Since Revell and a couple of other companies had reboxing agreements with Matchbox, naturally if there was one available in another range it would still be this original Matchbox kit.
So what's inside the typical looking Matchbox box? I am sure it will come as no surprise to tell you there are three sprues of injection molded parts.... each in a different colour. Thankfully though, unlike some of their other kits dazzled by sprues in primary colours, the three sprues here are white, light grey and a metallic grey. The plastic is a bit hard as you would expect and some parts will need a quick running over with the blade to remove the tiniest amount of flash on very few of the parts. There are about 60 parts in all but only two thirds of these will be used for the version you build, plus a clear sprue of a further 9 parts, which are thick but reasonably clear considering it is a Matchbox kit. Surface detail is very finely raised with engraved control surfaces - and far from the renowned trench like scribing for once! In fact the kit looks much nicer and more crisply molded than what this manufacturer is generally renowned for. Once you start building you realise this is quite a decent mold.
The Metallic Grey sprue consists of most of the breakdown of external parts such as fuselage, separate rudder, and inside, cabin bench seats. There are also two cockpit cover options (which I will refer to hereunder as "cupolas") and the two cowling options, depending if you wish to build a He 70 or He 170. The light grey sprue contains the two spinner options and two gear bay door options, again depending on your choice of subject. This sprue also contains the underwing halves, engine block, some cockpit and cabin stuff, external detail such as antennae, loops, masts and undercarriage rails etc. The white sprue includes the two propeller and exhaust stack options for the two major versions provided for by the kit (He 70/170). Also it provides the upper wing halves, undercarriage, interior floor and very basic bucket seats and the tailplanes. I also note that the sprues are copyrighted 1988, so I assume this is a recent reissue of the original kit.
The box is rated as skill level 2 (out of 4, with 1 being beginner) and also includes on the bottom of the box artwork for the three examples covered in the kit. There is no discussion of colours so you will need to refer to the instructions for these....  Instructions:
Unfortunately I was unlucky to pick up this kit with instructions written entirely in Chinese, so I was unable to interpret things such as colour call outs and the history on the aircraft, making things difficult to follow. Thankfully, a quick message into rec.models.scale newsgroup and was able to pick up a scanned copy of the English instructions thanks to a couple of very prompt responses. So hereafter the instruction sheet I refer to is mine (ie: Chinese) but with the English information on colours.
The sheet is a narrow version of an A3 size sheet with a centre spread of most of the assembly steps and the other side essentially containing the back of the sheet on the top half, and the front of the instruction sheet on the bottom half - I hope that makes sense. The front page/half provides (remember it is in Chinese!) a background on the aircraft, various symbols like triangles, squares etc (representing matt, gloss, etc) and letters representing colour names (eg: a-Dark Grey; g-white, k-black, etc); and then a small series of sketches of areas (such as cabin interior, cockpit, wheels, wells etc) to provide painting information. The only other time painting information is given in the instructions is for the external colour and marking sketches. That is, there is no painting information provided during the construction process.
The centrespread has most of the assembly steps which are easy to follow plus universal type symbols on what is used in the construction process (do not cement, cement etc) and these can generally be assumed pretty accurately in spite of being in Chinese. At the top of the page are also sketches of the three examples covered in the kit labelled 1, 2 & 3 (and you can easily cross check this with the back of the instruction sheet or bottom of the box to be clear on which version is which number) and thus throughout the instructions the steps includes the right process to follow depending on which version you wish to make. For instance, assembly step 3 applies only to versions 1 (He 70F) and 3 (He 170A), whereas assembly step 4 covers the same construction process as step 3 but only applies to version 2 (He 70G).
The back of the sheet contains the rest of the construction process and small three view diagrams for painting and decal placement. The Lufthansa version (no. 2) also points out the three options of nose finishing: continuous decal to the nose, painted black or left silverish per the rest of the aircraft. The assembly steps number 20 as such, but this does not include the half a dozen or so on the front page, nor of course does each and every step apply to the version that one is building as stated above, some apply only to one or two versions, and other steps, such as step 11 discussed in construction below actually have three steps incorporated into one.
Painting Guide:
The instructions only provide generic names for colour, although on the English instruction sheet (note: not on the Chinese) there is also a German translation, so there is obviously scope to work out the RLM equivalents. I did my best [and note this disclaimer that it was best research I could achieve and may not be absolutely 100% correct!] and went with the following:
EXAMPLE: t - (letter denoted in the instruction sheet) - light blue (generic English name provided); lichtblau (German translation) - H27 Sea Grey [RLM 76/FS 35622] (The Humbrol paint I used plus equivalent RLM and/or FS number as I interpreted it).
a - Dark Grey; DunkelGrau - H27 Sea Grey [RLM 74/FS 34086]
b - Light Blue; Hellblau 65 - H65 Light Blue [RLM 65/FS 35352]*
c - Dark Brown; Dunkelbraun 26 - H10 Service Brown {80%} + H33 Black {20%} [RLM 61/FS 30040]*
d - Dark Green; Dunkelgrun 71 - H116 US Dark Green [RLM 71/FS 34102] {or H30 Dark Green 34079 another option}*
e - Sand Yellow; Sandgelb 79 - [RLM 79/FS 30215] ; while not fully correct Humbrol 94 Matt Brown Yellow was used
f - Stone Grey; Steingrau - I could not work this one out so I used H121 Pale Stone which looks reasonably accurate
g - White; Weiss - H34 Matt White*
h - Black Green; Schwarzgrun - H91 Black Green [RLM 70/FS 34050]* #
i - ##
j - Medium Grey; Mittelgrau - H92 Iron Grey [RLM02/FS 36165]*
k - Black; schwarz - H33 Matt Black*
l - Silver; silber - H11 Silver ##*
m - Steel; Stuhl - Not sure on this one, so combined usages of aluminium and gun metal depending on area
n - Deep Blue; Tiefblau - again, not sure, did not need to use, but assume this means Lufthansa Blue as it is only denoted for that version
o - Ivory; elfenbein - H148 Matt Radome Tan
p - Leather, braun - H62 Leather
* - these translations and their RLM (in particular) and respective Humbrol equivalents are in my opinion pretty well spot on
# - "h" was actually missing from my Chinese instruction sheet but is on the English instructions so I added it to mine
## - "i" is listed on my Chinese sheet, but not on the English instructions which instead has an "l" that is not on mine! However, on my instructions "i" is never referred to in the colour markings, but "l" is, so I assumed it was a misprint and they're one in the same letter.
Construction:
Construction begins in the cabin and cockpit area. A lot of the detail won't be seen because of the narrow cockpit and fuselage windows which are thick and a little distorted as well. The kit supplies a long floor plus three bucket seats (2 in the cockpit, 1 in the cabin under the rear canopy) for the two military versions, or 2 cockpits seats and two benches facing each other in the cabin for the Lufthansa version. Needless to say the seats are typical clumps of plastic that are not very convincing. A control wheel unit is provided on a small stand that fits neatly in between alignment rails on the floor, although the controls end up higher than the back of the pilot's seat! The control wheel stand is actually longer than the width of the cockpit floor, so you need to snip off any excess. There is a rear wall in the rear cabin (but nothing separating cockpit from cabin) and a main front instrument panel with very minor raised instrumentation detail that doubles up as the front bulkhead. I decided to paint the interior RLM02 using Humbrol 92 - don't forget you need to paint or add detail underneath the cockpit floor as well because there is a window in the belly of the fuselage and cockpit floor is white (which will look odd!).
The fuselage windows all go in quite well but they are ever so slightly smaller than the cavities so be careful you don't push them right through. This is also (step #3) one of those important assemblies that you are supposed to be paying attention to the instructions - guess what, I didn't! The step covers the He-70F-2 and He-170 versions (step #4 covers the Lufthansa He-70G) but if you look carefully there is an inset diagram of installing the belly-fuselage window with [3] next to it for the He-170 version. Somehow in the confusion of assembly I missed this and thought the window in the belly of aircraft was installed in both versions. Meanwhile I was looking for the belly window in reference material and couldn't find any underside shots of this aircraft. So of course, I went ahead and installed it, by affixing it into one fuselage half, of course making sure afterward that the fuselage halves would still go together okay, and the other half of this window would slot in accordingly - so some test fitting is required here.
While I have made a blunder here on the belly window thankfully it is one of those cases that I simply just need to paint over it and apply the appropriate coating afterward. I did this well after the project was finished after being alerted to the error, masked off the finished areas around it and painted, gloss then matt coated accordingly and you can't really tell the difference. It just looks like a panel there. If I had my wits about me all I would have had to do was fast forward myself to Step #11 (which caters for the He-70F only) and noticed the underside sketch has no window, whereas Step #13 (which caters for the He-170 only) does have a sketch of a window! More about these two steps in a minute.
The cockpit assembly sits in alignment grooves and fits well - just make sure the rear bulkhead is clear of the opening because you will have to attach the cockpit cupola later and it won't fit if the rear bulkhead is in the way. The fuselage halves were then affixed together nicely, and held in place with rubber bands as clamps. My version required the opening of a hole underneath the front of the fuselage for an antenna mast, as directed by a "H" in the instruction sheet. Like my error with the belly window above, this opening also only applies to one of the two versions in this Step #3, and in this case it is the He-70F as it has a [1] next to it.
Next came the assembly of the engine, and as already stated both engine types are included in the kit for the He 70 or He 170. Building the He 70 means obviously I am discussing the assembly of that version. The propeller is moveable, with spinner, shaft and stopper attached to the front cowling (the spinner of course cuts out any ability for engine detail anyway - the He 170 does include an engine block). The cowling cover is divided into three panels, left/right and top, with a gap in the left and right sides for the exhaust stacks to be added later. The instructions go for the sub assembly of the engine and cowling which you subsequently attach to the nose. I actually found this part a bit confusing as the instructions were a little inadequate in exactly the way it should be affixed to the propeller/spinner sub assembly. For instance is the nose section attached to the inside of the cowling panels or on the rim outside? It turned out to be on the inside of the top panel but outside of the left/right panels. So, instead I attached the left/right panels to the fuselage and the propeller and top cowling panel to this afterward. It goes without saying therefore that you need the panels correctly lined up on the fuselage so the top panel will fit accordingly (it helped that the left/right panels were still wet and could be manipulated).
The kit supplies wheel covers to cater for the wheels-down or -up model in conjunction with the different versions in the kit. There is the full set of gear doors (ie: one-piece) that can be glued straight into the wheel well or separate pieces supplied to depict an open wheel well and the actual wheel covers themselves being split in half. I decided not to worry about testing the undercarriage but I am pretty confident they will go in well. There is unfortunately no wheel well detail, the lower wing halves have the openings and it is just the inside of the top wing pieces that act as the bay. For the closed position, the one-piece doors fit very well, providing a very slight amount of flash is removed from the edges of the wheel well opening. I also needed to use pegs to hold in one of the covers because it didn't quite match the contour of the wing - one end would pop out if the other was held in. The upper wing halves were then affixed to the lower wings and these fitted beautifully without any clamps required and left to dry as a sub assembly.
The next three steps on the instruction sheet - steps 11-13 were each separate according to the version being built. Step 11 dealt with the next construction phase of the He-70F I was building, Step 12 the Lufthansa version and Step 13 the Hungarian He 170. But just to make it a little confusing for you, each step also had an additional A and B step as well, so I of course took notice of Step 11, 11A and 11B. So you are still effectively following three steps here anyway! The cockpit cupola, or whatever you want to call it, fits into the cavity in the top of the fuselage and while it fits well there is a very small gap around the edges that needs filling and sanding. A rear gun is also provided in the kit and this was added to the rear cockpit. The canopies for the cockpit and rear gunner are added and fit very well, but the front canopy does have the slightest little step between from the top of the fuselage; it is not 100% flush. But having said that, one needs to really look at it to see it! The rear canopy is also only provided in an open form, it does not allow the provision of a closed rear cockpit. The Lufthansa version of course is provided with a separate cockpit cupola that does not include the provision of the rear cockpit/canopy. The rudder is a separate piece and can thus be positioned as desired and the tailplanes were also added, which fit well. The main wings are added also in this step[s] and these also fit well, however, to get the right dihedral there is a largish resulting gap in the underside wing roots which putty and sanding obviously fixed, plus a small gap in the upper wing roots.
The various loops and antennae, both underside and upper fuselage were added. Apart from the DF Loop and mast just forward of the rear cockpit and the forward underfuselage antenna (part 3), there are no locating holes to assist in exact positioning, and it is a case of interpretation from instructions and reference material for exact placement. For the belly antenna I simply affixed to the belly (but later with superglue for strongest adhesion as discussed in painting below after it snapped off). The port wing pitot tube had a small locating pin on it, but no hole I could find on the wing. Carefully with the excel blade I simply opened up a small hole in the wing leading edge (very very carefully I should add since the blade liked to slip! And not something the inexperienced modeller should try) and affixed the pitot tube in place. The tail-bumper was added and sits well. The radiator was also sub-assembled then the mating surface sanded so it adhered to the underside of the fuselage well - again you need to rely on accurate interpretation from the instructions and reference material for exact placement.
While I built a wheels up model, and in spite of what I said above, I did end up having a quick look and test assembly of the undercarriage, and this is a fairly fiddly but reasonably straight forward exercise. There are four parts just making up the wheel cover and strut section, not including the wheel and gear doors which are also obviously affixed. The instructions provide small inset diagrams for each version showing profile of the lowered undercarriage and where the gear doors should be affixed to.
Overall instruction was very straight forward and simple with only the few notes above on cupola fit and wing roots needing any specific extra attention.
Versions:
As already stated there are three examples provided for by the kit and I will list the versions in the same order as they are covered in the construction process (ie: Version 1, 2 & 3).
Heinkel He 70F-2 of the Spanish Nationalist Air Force, Vitoria, Summer 1937 depicted on the boxart wearing a fairly colourful combination of camouflage scheme in dark green, tan, sand brown and dark brown over light grey undersides.
Heinkel He 70G-1, Lufthansa airline, 1935/36 wearing a black nose area, grey fuselage and German flag fin flash. There is also an option of painting the nose area black and I would assume also for this example that a swastika in red banner should be placed on the fin, but this is not discussed in the kit (nor are any swastikas provided). A little bit of research will be able to resolve this point.
Heinkel He 170A, 1st Independent Long-Range Reconnaissance Group, 2nd SQN, Hungary Air Force, Kecskemet, Spring 1939, wearing a similar camouflage scheme to the Spanish version above with what looks like Hellblau undersides. Red, white and Green triangle national insignia being worn on the wings and smaller ones on the fin.
Painting:
Admittedly this turned out to be a bit of a chore than a really enjoyable part of the kit because of the number of coats and re-runs needed in addition to the number of paints required. Sometimes with so many different camouflage paints to use, it becomes easier to overdo a bit here and there and thus requiring subsequent multiple corrections until everything is right. The belly antenna snapped off at one point so was quickly and successfully reaffixed with superglue, but of course another coat of Hellblau had to then be applied!
The whole model was given an undercoat of primer, mainly because the plastic is in three different colours and obviously a consistent colour base is needed before applying the camouflage. Discounting the Hellblau underside and white wing tips etc, there are essentially four colours making up the camouflage scheme. From lightest to darkest I used H121 Pale Stone; H62 Leather; H116 US Dark Green (RLM71); and RLM61 Dark Brown. These were applied in this same order to the model, and in spite of the primer undercoat, each still needed two coats to be fully effective on the surface. Naturally though, it looks quite striking once everything had been completed! I am pretty confident that most of the colours are correct, the only one I had doubts about was Pale Stone but I am prepared to live with that choice, it certainly looks right!
One thing to point out is that the wingtips were white and a small mold line on the model will help guide you to the right amount of white to apply, in addition to what the instruction sheet says. I know that some other Spanish War aircraft had their rudders painted white but this is not discussed in the instructions. In any event, on this aircraft it is imperative to paint it white anyway, because of the white fin flash that will be applied later by decal. Since the decals are thin, if you paint anything other than white underneath then obviously it will be able to be seen through the decal. I left the propellers in overall matt black as I could not turn up any reference material that suggested any warning strips were painted on their tips.
Decals:
The decal sheet is large but contains no stencilling, only the unit badges and insignia for each of the three versions supplied in the kit, each section of course being clearly marked for the version in the kit the decals apply to. My decals had a very slight yellowing to them. Since this is a reissued kit I was a bit disgruntled by this and wasn't sure in fact whether it was the decal sheet itself or in fact I had an old kit reboxed? So apart from the white sections, colour register is quite good although there is a fair bit of excess carrier film - particularly on the already quite large Lufthansa fuselage codes.
The other thing of note is the absence of any numbers or letters identifying the decal between the sheet and instructions. While in most cases this does not prove much of an issue, for the Spanish Civil War version you have to work out which of the underwing stripes to place where (as they are slightly different sizes) and of course the upper wing and lower wing roundels must be interpreted from the instructions as well, since one pair is larger than the other. Going on what I could interpret from the instructions on the size of the roundel representative to the wing area it covered, as well as checking Spanish Civil War markings on other aircraft I deemed the larger roundel to go on the underside.
The decals were thin but glossy, and went on quite well, easily separating from the backing paper after even a short time soaking. The rudder flashes certainly need to be trimmed of excess carrier film, lest you have almost enough to extend the rudder by another half! In fact all the decals could do with a small trim around the edges to cut down on the carrier film. The white in the Spanish cross, tail fin unit badge and rudder flashes are pretty transparent when placed on a darker background, so it is essential to paint the rudder white to avoid this problem. The unit badge on the fin was not so bad because it was placed on a Pale Stone area, the lightest of the camouflage scheme. The two underwing stripes were also trimmed a little from their carrier film and then it was a matter of placing the larger strips just outside the main undercarriage bays - you can slide the decal into a position where it fits best lining up the leading and trailing wing edges to either end of the decal stripe. Obviously on the other wing you need to turn the decal around because the wing and decal shape flows in the opposite direction, and then the smaller stripes can be place about half a centermetre further toward the wing tip from the larger strip - again testing their placement first will reveal the best location. The fuselage codes were a touch large in my opinion compared to both the Matchbox artwork and other reference material. Overall the decals went on fine, slid around a bit and the excess carrier film was really the only concern.
Accuracy:
I don't have a great deal of reference material on this aircraft and I only have the instructions and Airplane magazine to go by for dimensions on the kit. Working on the premise that length is 11.6m and span 14.8m the model should come in at 16.25cm and 20.56cm respectively - measurements turn out to be 16.5cm and 20.8cm or about 1/71 scale. Again with only limited photos and artwork as reference comparisons to go by, I was pretty impressed with the shapes and lines of the kit compared to these. The only two concerns I had were perhaps the cockpit cupola and their glazing was a bit too narrow on the model and the nose a bit too squared off.
Overall:
Matchbox got it right when they marketed this kit as Skill Level 2 in my opinion, I think it is probably one of those that might provides some frustration in parts to the novice, but anyone with a few kits under their belt will be able to build quickly and easily. This kit also dispels the Matchbox legendary trench-like scribing renowned ness that has plagued their reputation for so many years. This model is much crisper and cleaner and was a good kit to build. Taking into account its closeness in accuracy this is still a subject that is not covered by any other injection molded manufacturer in this scale and a definitely different addition to the display cabinet for Interwar or early Luftwaffe type aircraft. Do I plan to get another? Oh my lordy wordy yes I do, in fact two - I want to do the He 170 and also try out for an He 70F-1 depicted in the overall white with black striping Luftwaffe Kurierstaffel aircraft of 1940/41. I would give this kit a very high recommendation. 
© Peter Ness 2002
If you squint for a prolonged period at the underside of the wings, you should be able to make out the yellow end panels and the white lettering - as you can tell, I attempted to follow the profile of "S4+Q22". I'm rather satisfied, as this is only "#4" that I've built.Addendum - additional comments supplied by Peter Ness:
Perhaps you were too kind regarding the gap (huge, my opinion) where the underside of the wing meets the fuselage.
I've tried a different assembly sequence for the cowling/exhaust area, too; I used a thicker, tube-type plastic cement to glue the three cowling pieces in step 6 directly to the fuselage. Right after setting them in place, I held the nosepiece (part 53 from step 5) at the very front and adjusted the three cowling pieces while the thick cement still allowed movement. When I was happy with the fit, I removed part 53, and used a thinner cement in a container with a needle applicator, to run a bead of cement along the joints of the three cowling pieces, in the INSIDE. Assembling this way leaves two slots on the sides for the exhaust runners, and then of course, once I install the prop and spinner onto part 53, that will be cemented in place.
It was a bit fiddly assembling the cowling in the manner I followed, but the cemented parts set up well enough that I could mask and paint the entire fuselage without part 53, the prop and spinner interfering. I would guess that depending on a modelers preference on how to approach the various Luftwaffe schemes, they may find this approach useful or a hindrance. I also painted the motor exhaust pipes and installed them separately after painting, as the gaps in the cowling allowed for a very good fit and alignment of these parts. Bear in mind that I'm coming to this hobby from scratch-building HO (1/87) scale model railroad equipment, so I'm crossing-over with my bag of "tried and true tricks" as well as attempting new techniques I read about contributed by others to your web site. 
© Peter Ness 2002
__________________
 For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.
I'm the "Confederate with a pipe"!! LOL
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