Well, I'm in gentleman. This will be only the second group build in which I've participated; looking forward to it! My contribution is the venerable Bf-109E. I have started the kit but it is a long way from assembly at this point. I'm planning on painting her in the Tunisian Scheme of RLM 78 over RLM 79 at this point. Of course, that may change before the Paasche H is fired up! Let the fun begin!

Yep, excellent choice, Gary!
Looking forward to it!

Love the E-7 in desert schemes! Well done Gary! Great addition!

Thanks for the support and encouragement from everyone! I'm looking forward to seeing some great work here. The HC kit does have a very nicely detailed cockpit. I've been told elsewhere that is courtesy of the original Hasegawa kit upon which it's based. I was told the Hasegawa model came with a resin Verlinden 'pit and the HC parts were made from that. True or not, it is a nicer cockpit than I've seen in my other Hobbycraft builds.

Thanks George! I am still a bit "undecided" about my final choice of schemes. The "desert Emils" are often shown with the multitude of mottles over the top side and I am thinking about that one too. I have a Badger Sotar airbrush that has never been used. To be honest, it's always intimidated me; as the ancient and simple Paasche Model H is all I've ever used. I've gotten quite comfortable with it over the years but I'm questioning its (and my own) capabilities to pull off those mottles in a neat fashion. I've got an adapter ordered to fit the Sotar to my Paasche air hose and I may just get her out of the box and have a go at it. If I chicken out of that attempt, I'll most likely use the Tunisian scheme. Thanks again for your interest!

Thanks for that info @coling! The Black 8 scheme is cool for sure and quite effective too in that AO. I'm going to practice with that Sotar and see what I can do. I know it's a very capable airbrush...we'll see how capable it is in my hands, lol. 🙂

You're welcome Louis! And thank you for inviting me to the group. There are some incredibly gifted modelers in this one and I'll try to be a credible one! 🙂 I'm now waiting on a parcel from Quinta Studios in Russia for the 109. That kit is next in the queue; I'm glossing my AMT Tigercat today and it should move along nicely after that. I'm anxious to see the HC 109 take shape (hopefully, it will look kind of right, lol) and perhaps start another. At the moment, the mojo is working hard and I'm taking advantage of the momentum. I'm going into the "old" stash and bringing the Monogram F-102 to life after owning it for 30 years or more. It will be my first Monogram build since the F-84F. I guess that's going back to my roots! 🙂

Thank you George! I hope it goes together well; I'm trying out a few new things and we'll see how that goes too, lol.

I took a few pics of my progress so far while I had the camera out this afternoon. I had been waiting for the Quinta Studios cockpit set to arrive from Russia and since it has done that, I'm running out of excuses to not get back to it. It's really a pretty simple and basic model kit and since all the components are pretty much done now, it should move along rather smartly once it returns to the table. Here's what we have so far:

The box art

And the Quinta Studios set

fuselage halves test fitted with a bit of paint

Main gear wells (such as they are) are done

The back-plate for the spinner is too big and had to be filed and sanded down quite a lot. Here it is with the spinner sitting on top

Main gear doors are also ready

The cockpit in this kit is based on a Verlinden resin set that came with the Hasegawa kit upon which this Hobbycraft version is based; I guess that explains the somewhat unusual level of detail seen in a HC kit.

Pilot's foot pedals with scratch-built foil straps

The Quinta set (for an Eduard kit, btw) has two main instrument panel pieces and the top part seems to fit. But I had to modify the kit IP in order to use the lower part of Quinta's set. The IP 3D decals feature some amazing detail and I'm looking forward to trying them. I hadn't realized the set included seat harnesses so that's a bonus and allows me to save my Luftwaffe PE sets for other builds.

Tires are painted but the wheels aren't; and the tires need a finish clear as well. Also seen here are two scratch-built grilles for the underwing radiators and also one for the chin cooler.

Main gear legs

Now, I found an interesting photo showing young German ground crewmen servicing a 109E in the desert and the photo showed severe paint weathering on the front of the metal prop blade. I tried to duplicate that by rubbing SnJ aluminum polishing power along the edge with a tiny Tamiya cotton bud.

Here's the original photograph

And a few pics of my attempts at copying that

Well, that's all I have for now. I have to try to figure out my Sotar airbrush in the next few days as I need it for the next stage of the Tigercat build. I've never used it before and it's going to need a little practice time to get comfortable. I'm not even sure I can take it apart without screwing something up, lol. 🙂

1 additional image. Click to enlarge.