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Bf 109E-4 of 10./NJG1 Lynn Ritger |
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It
is a little-known fact that several all-black 109s saw service with the
Luftwaffe in WWII.
The German magazine “Jet + Prop” published an article two
years ago covering the Emil shown above, G9+JV (along with another photo
of G9+GV)… these aircraft saw service with 10./NJG1 during the summer
of 1941, supplementing the activities of the more common Bf 110Cs of the
rest of the unit. The recent Revell/Germany re-release of the Hasegawa Bf 109E-4 actually comes with the decals to build G9 + JV, but they give the codes in RLM 77 light grey. While this does conform with the L.Div. requirements for code colors used on black aircraft, it is unfortunately wrong for these aircraft. NJG1’s Bf 110s used a dark red, not unlike British Dull Dark Red, for their codes and the photo below shows that this dark color was used on the 109s as well. As such, I had to carefully overpaint the grey areas of the code letters with a custom-mixed dark red… the results are certainly more satisfying!
This is the Tamiya Bf 109E-4/7 kit, built straight from the box using tape seatbelts. One item I left off of the model which is present on the real aircraft is the blister covering the Peil Gerät direction finding equipment under the aft fuselage, visible in the upper photo.
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