RetroWings 1/144 Eduard Ju-87 Stuka Cockpit
By Matt Bittner
In case you weren't aware, the Eduard 1/144 Ju-87 Stuka has no cockpit. In fact, the entire cockpit area under the canopy is nothing but plastic - no hole, nothing. So, in order to use this cockpit set from RetroWings, there is plastic surgery involved.
That surgery consists of getting rid of all the plastic and creating an actual cockpit opening. In addition, there will probably also thinning of the cockpit walls as well before you can start adding the resin pieces. Once that is accomplished, though, you need to build up the resin cockpit. That is acheived by glueing the sidewalls to the floor, followed by the instrument panel up front. Next is the front seat and rear stool for all versions, then if you're building either the 'D' or 'G' version of the Stuka, you'll need to add the pilot's armored plate. Finally the control stick and "smaller lever" are glued to the cockpit floor, completing the cockpit. Now this can be added into one fuselage half prior to gluing those halves together.
What I would do, though, is actually not thin the kit's cockpit sidewalls until the fuselage tub is assembled. That way you don't have a gap to deal with. In addition, the other thing I would do is either squash-cast, or vaccuum form a new canopy, so all this excellent detail can be seen.
The one complaint I have with this set are the instructions. I would be nice to be able to see just how all the resin pieces fit together. Granted, it definitely isn't a "show stopper", but would be nice to see anyway.
I definitely want to give plenty of thanks to RetrokiT for not only supplying this review set, but also for continuing to show "aftermarket love" to plenty of 1/144 kits either new on the market, or those out for quite some time.