Messerschmitt Bf 109G-10 Erla 'Weekend Edition'

Inside the box you will find one clear and four dark grey-coloured sprues, there is no photo-etched or masks in this series. Many of the parts are not required in this particular version, so you get a lot of very useful bits to add to your spares box. The full-colour instructions take you though assembly over nine pages and colours are highlighted throughout via the Gunze-Sangyo Mr Aqueous Hobby Color and Mr Color ranges. Breakdown is traditional for all their Bf 109F and Gs, so you have a nice cockpit floor/bulkhead into which goes the trim wheel, control column, seat pan, rudder pedals, cannon breech cover (two styles included) and fuel flow sight glass (clear plastic), with the seat belts supplied as decals. The starboard sidewall has a separate electrical distribution panel and the instrument panel can either be painted or a combination of paint and a decal. The gun troughs in the upper cowl comes as a separate insert, with backing plates for the partial gun barrels to sit into. The supercharger intake is multi-part and the wooden vertical fin is achieved via fuselage halves that don't have that element moulded in situts. The tailplanes are also separate as are the elevators. The wheel wells have multi-part linings and the ailerons, flaps and leading edge slats are all separate, while the radiators have separate flaps and separate matrices; as does the oil cooler under the chin. The undercarriage features wheels with separate hubs and the canopy is multi-part, so can be posed open. The armoured headrest is a separate component, while the aerial mast, pitot, FuG 16 'Morane mast' and D/F loop are separate (grey plastic) components. No ordnance is supplied in the kits, but you do get two styles of 300lt drop tank under the centreline.

Colour Options
The kit offers the following decal options: 
• W/Nr.490617, 'Blue 2', flown by Uffz. Gerhard Reiher, 8./JG 3, Alperstedt, Germany, November 1944
• 'Yellow 2', KG(J) 27, Kaufbeuren, Germany, May 1945
• W/Nr.150816, 'Green 4', JG 300, Bad Langensalza, Germany, April 1945
• W/Nr.491407,flown by Capt. Cesare Marchesi, 3a Squadriglia, 1o Gruppo Caccia, Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, Lonate Pozzolo, Italy, March 1945
The decal sheets, which are printed by Eduard, are excellent and have perfect register and colour density. The swastikas are placed on the edge of the main sheet so that they can be clipped off in those countries where the symbol is banned, with split versions on the main sheet and the sheets includes things like the white spiral for the spinner. There is also a separate sheet containing a complete set of airframe stencils.

Conclusion
This is an excellent kit and with it available in both ProfiPACK and this Weekend Edition, the choice is entirely yours. Which ever you choose, this one is highly recommended to all Luftwaffe modellers.

Our thanks to Eduard (www.eduard.com) for the review sample, UK modellers can obtain this kit from Hannants here.