Revell of Germany
1/72 Junkers F-13
Kits Nos. 4213, 4215 & 4249

Junkers F 13 History for the Revell Kits

Anecdote has it that on Armistice Day November 11, 1918 Professor Hugo Junkers directed his Chief Designer, Otto Reutter, to switch immediately from military projects to civil projects. The first result of this directive was a modification of the J 10, two-place, armed, observation plane, into the J 12, a light four passenger civil airplane. Only the prototype was built. The J 12 quickly became the J 13, which was marketed as the F 13, four-passenger, two crew airliner. The prototype, w/n 531, “Annelise” made its first flight June 25, 1919 at Dessau in the hands of test pilot Karl Monz. The German Air Transport Registry gave the second F 13, “Hertha”, the first post war civil registration, D-1.

On September 13, 1919, Monz took Annelise up to 6, 750 meters with six passengers aboard, unofficially breaking the altitude record for civil transports. The feat was “unofficial” because Germany had been excluded from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI). F 13s were built, by Junkers, at Dessau and in Limhamm, Sweden; they were also license built in the USSR, the USA and Japan. Production of F 13s at Dessau ended in 1932. Altogether something approaching 1000 F 13s were built but the exact number is unknowable. The simple, rugged, all-metal F 13 was operated all over the world in all manner of duties on wheels, skis and floats. Many were in service well into WWII.

The Revell Kits

Revell of Germany first released the F 13 as kit No. 4215 in 1992 on wheels. This first issue has a significant error in that the fuselage corrugations, aft of the passenger cabin, run parallel with the fuselage centerline rather than with the top longeron, as they should. This was corrected in the 1994 release of kit No. 4213 on floats but with the wheeled landing gear included. In 2007 the corrected kit was released again, as kit No. 4249, with floats and wheels. All three releases feature the long wing with straight ailerons. The short wing with curved ailerons was more common. Be sure your references support the match-up of the physical configuration of the airplane and the markings you’ve chosen to use. F 13 configurations are a minefield for the unwary; they varied mainly in wingspan, ailerons, fins, rudders, exhausts and propellers.

The biggest problem with this kit is the thick trailing edges of the wings and tail group. When I do my next one I will carefully sand down the faying surfaces of the upper and lower wing halves at their trailing edges. As the Stabilizer/elevator is one solid piece there’s nothing you can do to thin its trailing edges so I drooped the elevator to hide the T.E. The rudder is also in one solid piece with the fin. As there’s no way to hide its T.E., I made a new, separate, rudder from the rudder of a donor Ju 52/3m. With the usual clarity of hindsight I realize I could have done the same with the elevator and recommend you do so. The two later issues of the kit have the fin/rudder for the seaplane molded in left and right halves, with thin trailing edges so you can steal that rudder for the earlier kit if you want.

Assembly of the fuselage is a bit fiddly. There is a separate top and two sides; each side includes half the belly. The cockpit, cabin interior and engine sub-assemblies are trapped between the sides. The engine can’t be seen at all so mine went into the spares box and I blanked off the hole in the engine cover from the inside and later attached the rhino-horn exhaust to the blanking piece.

The plastic is quite soft making it fairly easy, albeit time consuming, to clean up the poorly formed corrugations at the turn of the bilges and the turn of the crown into the sides of the fuselage. The same tedious cleaning up is required at the leading edge of the wing.

The floats are each in four pieces; two sides, a top and a bottom. This manner of molding them provides good detail on all four surfaces.

The fit of everything is quite good; I used a very few, very tiny spots of filler on the leading and trailing edges of the wing. Extra touches that I added included tied-back curtains at the windows, a scratch-built cockpit interior, thinned lift/grab handles, new door handles, control horns and cables all round. The over thick windscreens were replaced with new appropriately thin pieces.

The 4215 kit decals provide markings for two airplanes as operated by Deutsche Luft Hansa in the twenties. NOTE: “Luft Hansa” became” Lufthansa” in 1936.

The 4213 kit decals provide markings for two factory-owned planes used as sales demonstrators in South America in 1924/26. Both were ultimately sold to Lloyd Aero Boliviana. The decal sheet does not include the two ship names “Flamingo” and “Kauz”.

The 4249 kit decals offer a cornucopia of markings delights providing markings for four different planes: Danziger Luftpost, the Alderhof German Test Flight Center, OLAG Airline and Ad Astra Airline.

The decals work well but I urge you to cut them all out as close to the printed image as possible to minimize problems with getting them to lie down into the corrugations. I also recommend using a strip of low-tack tape as a guide to keep the registration numbers straight.

Revell Kits Conclusion

These are good kits, of an historically significant airplane, except for those awful, thick trailing edges. Given the historic significance of this subject, I think Revell of Germany would do well to retool the kit and reissue it to a quality that is up to the current state of the art. They would also do well to issue it with optional outer wing panels and ailerons.

References

• Hugo Junkers And His Aircraft: Gunter Schmidt, Transpress, Germany, 1998, ISBN 3-344-00303-8.

• Lufthansa, An Airline And Its Aircraft: R.E.G. Davies & Mike Machat, Crown, USA, 1991, ISBN 0-517-57022

• Junkers Aircraft And Engines 1913-1945: Anthony L. Kay, Putnam, UK, 2004, ISBN 0-851-77985-9.

• Air Enthusiast Quarterly No. 16, Aug/Nov, 1981

• Skyways Quarterly, Nos. 22, 23, 24 & 25.

• Aeroplane Monthly, Aug 1975, Oct 1976, April 1984 & June 1993 .

• Time/Life Books – The Airline Builders and Flying The Mail.

• American Aviation Historical Society Journal, Fall 1969