Special Hobby's
1/48 Arado Ar 96

By Chris Banyai-Riepl

History

The Arado Ar 96 was a well-designed trainer aircraft that was stable, maneuverable, and modern. First flown in 1936, the Ar 96 quickly proved to be an excellent trainer and soon found its way into the training schools of the Luftwaffe and other air forces. Many a Luftwaffe pilot got their start in the Ar 96, and after the Second World War the Ar 96 continued on in the Czech Air Force as a primary trainer. Even today it is considered to be one of the best trainer aircraft of the Second World War era.

The Kit

The Special Hobby kit of the Arado Ar 96 is the first injection kit of this plane in 1/48. A pleasant blend of injection plastic, resin, and vacuformed clear parts round out this model. Starting with the interior, everything except for the rear bulkhead is provided in resin. The resin parts are molded by CMK and are simply beautiful. This is a good thing, considering that everything will be seen under that greenhouse canopy. The cockpit is made up of separate sidewalls and a floorboard. Toss in a pair of instrument panels, a couple of control sticks and a pair of seats, and the interior is pretty much complete. The seats have cushions and seat belts molded in, and once painted up will look outstanding. The sidewall detailing will take some time with a fine brush, but once done, the interior will really stand out.

The plastic parts are crisply molded, with only a bit of flash around some of the smaller parts. The fuselage is split in half, with the vertical tail provided as a separate piece. The horizontal stabilizer is one-piece as well, so some care will be needed to make sure they all line up right. The resin parts for the interior look like they'll fit nicely into the fuselage with no fuss.

The wing is made up of a one-piece lower part and two-piece upper half. The fit looks to be very good, and only a bit of fiddling will be needed to put this thing together with no filler needed. The panel lines are very nicely done and will look good under a coat of paint. Some of the earlier Special Hobby kits had a slight pebbly texture to the plastic, but this kit has none, so you won't have to worry about losing any of that detailing.

The decals really add a lot to this kit. Three choices are given. The first one is a Luftwaffe one as shown on the boxtop. Large numbers are on the fuselage, and the camouflage is standard 70/71/65. The second choice adds some color by being a Hungarian one. Still finished in the 70/71/65 camouflage, this plane adds the standard Hungarian markings of green/white/red bands on the tail surfaces. A yellow fuselage band and codes finish this one off. The final choice is a Czech one, again in the 70/71/65 camouflage with standard Czech roundels in six positions.

Conclusion

While this kit may not be of Tamiya quality, it still looks like a quick and easy build. The only difficulty I see will be in picking just one camouflage scheme. With this being the sixth kit in Special Hobby's 1/48 lineup, one can only hope that we will see some more kits of interesting subject matter like this one in the near future.