[GrahamB]

Hi,

Sorry to see that you have had no responses so far to your posting. You have certainly picked a tough one here. It is not surprising given the erratic and error-ridden accounts of the early He111 series in the published literature and most ‘Luftwaffe fans’ are hooked on fighter types anyway.

Your chosen aircraft is actually not an He111 F but (according to literature) a He111 G4, one of only four produced. Another, PF+UP, is a well-published example (e.g. AirDoc, Squadron Signal), also being used as a courier during WW2. They were basically the He111 C fuselage with the late, straight, wings as seen on the F, J, P and H versions and DB 600 engines. This is the factor making the modelling a daunting prospect. The only photos I’ve seen are of WW2 period examples (re-fitted/upgraded?) and they appear to have He111 P-style cowlings and exhausts, rather than the bulkier DB installation seen in the He111B, D and J versions.

As for modelling – well you are really in unknown territory here. I’m in the process of building a Roden He111 E and have it in mind as well to do either a He111 F or J. There are two basic routes:

1. If you are into serious kit-bashing, scratchbuilding and can plunge-mould canopies you could try and modify a Hasegawa He111 P (or cheaper Italeri or Revell He111H – but more work on cowlings needed for converting from Jumo to DB) by re-configuring the cabin windows, deleting the ventral gondola and restoring the ventral fuselage, making or scribing the starboard entrance door (above rear wing-root), cutting off the P/H nose and making the solid A/C/G nose and canopy, etc etc. or….

2. Cross-kit a Roden He111C (hard to find now?) and either the Hasegawa He111P or the cheaper alternatives mentioned above, using the wings and engines of the latter. The problem is I don’t know how compatible the Roden kit’s wing root profile is with the others. There is also the issue of the Roden He111 – there are fit problems with the interior fuselage parts and I’m currently battling with a pronounced asymmetry between the port and starboard wing-root profiles. That said, the early He111s were among the first Roden kits and the passion for detail and basic accuracy was there – as seen in the beautiful 1/72, 1/48 and 1/32 WW1 biplanes that they are currently producing.

Whichever you choose, GOOD LUCK! By separate e-mail I’ll send some more images that might help.

There is a lot more to say on the early He111 series and it is poorly served in the literature – Squadron/Signal erroneously depict the F with curved wings and this error turned up again in the AirDoc profile of the J, and the Wekusta book profile of He111 J as well. Numerous identification errors occur in photograph captions and are even present in the Merrick series on camouflage and markings. If you are interested I could write another post specifically on some of my views about this and a proposal for a different taxonomy of the F series.

Best wishes

GrahamB