The Story

Although many companies in France produced fighters during the interwar period, Nieuport manufactured two landmark fighters beginning with the end of World War I. The Ni-D 29 biplane fighter appeared at the end of the war, and was produced for the Aeronautique Militaire during the twenties, as well as in several foreign countries. Export models were also sold to Belgium, Italy, Siam, Argentina, Spain, and Sweden. By the mid twenties, it was obvious that a replacement would be needed soon, and Nieuport then developed a high wing monoplane replacement, the Ni-D 62 series, many of which were built with a small stub wing, making it sort of a biplane. There were numerous variations in the production models, with differences in powerplant, wing arrangement, and fuselage structure. These were first built for the French, but later, many were sold to Spain, Romania, and Brazil. These aircraft served for many years, some being used as trainers as late as 1940. They were not particularly easy to fly, and were used in Spain after they were outdated, but they still were effective fighters under the right circumstances.

History

The Focke-Wulf 190D-9 was a superb aircraft but situations in the war prevented it from being really effective. The production of the aircraft was done by sub-contractors with final assembly taking place at various locations. Occasionally, the sub-contractors couldn’t keep up; such is the case of this version of the 190. It appears that approximately five aircraft received the Ta-152 type tail at the Mimetall factory, but the exact number is not known. There is photographic evidence of at least two aircraft. The Germans did not see the quandary that they would cause model builders in the future but they didn’t have any different designations to denote the new tail.

Any of us who suffer from AMS (Advanced Modeler Syndrome) are never satisfied with the “stock” kit, even one as fine as Tamiya’s F-16 series! Luckily there is a cure for those who love that insane level of detail but don’t have the time to do it ourselves, and Aires has long delivered the goods. This cockpit set continues to provide the quality we expect from Aires, however there are a few issues with getting it into the advertised kit it was “designed” for.