1/72 scale Airfix Bf-110 - part 1

 

As part of  'Aircraft Month' I decided that I'd better build a proper kit!  In the box of old kits I picked up at Warboot recently was an old Airfix Bf-110C/D, and it is this which now joins the random selection of 1/32 Napoleonics, 1/76 Japanese tanks and a 1/144 P-40 on the modelling table. 
Why, you ask am I building in a scale I don't use for wargaming?  Well, aside from the thrill of the inter-continental arms race that is Aircraft Month, the kit is unboxed - exposing it to damage amid my boxes of unbuilt kits.  The clincher though, is that the '110 has the dubious distinction of being the first model I ever painted.  I received it as a present on my 11th birthday (in 1976), together with my first three tins of Airfix-branded enamel paint - a dark green (upper surfaces), pale blue (undersides) and brown (exhausts, wheels, gun barrels).  It was built straight from the box and with the markings applied looked pretty good.  I remember using bits of it to build (well, bodge) a Ba-349 'Natter', probably in the late '70s.
Airfix originally released the '110 in 1959(!).  Clearly the kit has retained a following, as they have recently released a new tooling - nice to see they still believe in dramatic box art.

My '110 build is progressing at a sedate pace, and I have yet to decide on a colour scheme.  Further progress will be reported as it happens.