[Serpiko]

MB-339 P.A.N.

THE PLANE

Unlike the Sabre and the G-91, the Aermacchi MB-339 wasn't developed to be a fighter, but a dedicated trainer. For this reason the design was focused on flight characteristics and costs containment, rather than high performances. In its primary role, the MB-339 validly replaced its "dad" (the appreciated MB-326, of which the 339 was an evolution), providing a good platform for advanced training and displaying excellent aerobatic capabilities (i.e. watch this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og7fCw85Qns - and tell me how many jets can do that!), thus becoming an ideal candidate to re-equip the P.A.N. in 1982.
Nevertheless, both in its two seater and K (cannon-armed single seater) versions, The MB-339 can also fulfill the secondary role of light attack plane. It has seen action in the Falklands war (reported to have been the first Argentinian plane to attack the Royal Navy) and in the Eritrean Air Force against Etiopia.



IN THE BOX

The bag contains the usual two grey sprues and the transparent one, plus decals and instructions sheets. I open it and... D'OH! Raised lines! Not necessarily a flaw, ok, but a limit to me, because I need engraved details to perform my usual weathering technique. On the other hand, a shiny aerobatic model can look good even without weathering, so let's ger over it...
The detail level is generally decent, with some positive (seats) and negative (gear/airbrake bays) exceptions. This is probably the oldest of the three kits in the box: not many people are interested in this little plane, therefore there have been very few MB-339 kits around. This time there isn't any logo molded in the sprues, but a quick confrontation revealed this one to be a SUPERMODEL release. Again, there are some unnecessary parts, mostly external loads.
Speaking of the decals sheet, this one appears to be the most detailed of the three, as it provides bands, flags, roundels, logos, gauges panels, numbers and serials for each plane, but also some stenciling and pilot names.
Instructions are quite simple, although a few passages are not totally clear IMO. But we'll see that later.

Ejection handles on the seats are the only extra detail I added to my model, all the rest was built "as it comes".



BUILDING

First of all, I must say that the overall fitting of the parts is surprisingly good. There are a few minor issues, but all "critical" areas (such as wing roots and gear panels) come together nicely without the need for extra work, which is quite rare.

Assemblying the cockpit is simpler than it may appear. It's the usual job with adding seat, stick and gauges panel to the floor, you just have to do it twice. The detail of the seats is nice; gauges panels instead are totally flat, but anyway you get decals for them. Be careful while handling the sticks, they break easily!
Once the cockpit is finished, you have to enclose it between the two fuselage halves. Remember to add some weight inside the nose! However, since there isn't any piece for the exhaust, the tailpipe will remain open, so you could add more weight later if needed.

IMPORTANT: While trying dry fitting I noticed that, if you glue the cockpit piece exactly in its expected position, the headrest of the rear seat will protrude a little too much, preventing the canopy from fitting in closed position! To avoid this, while the glue is still wet, you can dry fit the canopy pressing it down to its correct position, thus forcing the rear side of the cockpit to fix in a "compromise" way. This way, there will be a 1-2mm gap between the rear side of the cockpit panel and its prosecution on the fuselage, but it will be almost completely hidden by the seat itself, and nobody will notice the "cheat".

As I said above, the construction of the wings is a pretty easy matter. They must be fixed with a slightly positive dihedral, while the tailplanes must be horizontal. This plane also has two small ventral fins, that must be attached under the tail with a 45° outwards inclination (the correct place for these fins is clearly shown by the raised lines on the fuselage).
Since the internal bays have almost no details here, I built my model with gear up and closed airbrake. REMEMBER: just like the other two kits, this one is supposed to wear large flag decals under its wings; therefore, pylons and/or gear legs must be fixed AFTER applying such decals.



Before glueing the canopy, you should add the pieces for opening mechanism (piston + staff) and rear instrument panel covering. Instructions aren't 100% clear about how to do that: in fact, after adding the panel covering, i found myself with no room for the piston anymore. Anyway, if you build the canopy closed, that's not a real problem.

It's now time for a few minor details. The molded pitot tube on the tail must be removed; instead of it, there are two tiny little pitots to be attached just ahead and aside of the windshield. More little than tiny, in fact: trying to handle them will make you sweat and swear, a LOT! Then there are two small fin-shaped antennas. The upper one goes just ahead of the tail, the other goes on the belly below the cockpit (instructions miss this passage!). Four small spoilers (two on each wing) must be fixed on the leading edge, near the wingtips. Last, there are two more fins to be fixed on the sides of the vertical stabilizer. A note about these fins: according to instructions and tail details, their place is near the top of the rudder, and so I fixed them. Nevertheless, recent MB339s have these fin in a lower position (about mid-height of the stabilizer), as showed by the decal reference pictures. But this way, they will interfere with the tail number decals, so you may decide to pass over this detail.

Last, the external loadout. Here's a very odd thing: Instructions show a loadout option featuring wingtip tanks, and there's even a dedicated decal for them... but, in real life, MB339 PANs have their wingtip attachments REMOVED to improve maneuverability, so this is just nonsense! The usual loadout is 4 underwing pylons with small tanks on the inner pylons only.



PAINTING AND DECALS

The base livery is the usual full blue with aluminium belly, but this time a little more work is required, since leading edges must be painted white (including those of vertical and horizontal stabilizers), while the air intakes have a black edge. Wing and fuselage bands are provided as decals.
The decal sheet for this plane includes a few more details, such as the "50° anniversary" badge and the current pilot name for every plane in the formation. I'm glad to say that, once again, decals are nearly perfect: they are well printed, resistant, not too thick, and they match the size of the model with surprising precision. This is expecially evident (and useful) with the large flags under wings and tailplanes and with the fuselage bands (each of which comes in two pieces). Applying such wide decals could be a frustrating job, but in this case the high quality makes it much simpler.
As usual, I applied a final coating with transparent spray.



CONCLUSIONS

Considering the age of the original kit, its level is pretty good. Despite being initially disappointed by the raised details, I enjoyed the good quality of kit and decals, that made this a mostly painless build. In the end, I'm very pleased with the finished model. Thumbs up!