The Aircraft

The Junkers Ju-52/3m was a continuation of the Ju-52/1m. The 3m stands for three engines (dreimotoren), the 1m stands for one engine (einmotor). The prototype was built with one engine, but it proved to be badly underpowered, so two more engines, one on each wing, were added.

The other feature of the Ju-52 was the corrugated skin on the wings and fuselage. The idea, originated by Junkers in World War I, was to add strength to the aircraft without adding weight. The Ford Trimotor used this, too. Although it worked, the corrugations added drag. It can also be an additional task for the modeler when filling seams.

The Kit

The PE set consists of two frets of PE. They seemed to be set up so that one covers the interior, the other the exterior. Some of the parts are prepainted, and some are left in “natural” brass.

Construction and Painting

I did the interior of the cockpit and the back side of the bulkhead between the cockpit and troop/cargo area first. The cockpit interior adds an instrument panel, an add-on on the bulkhead above the seats, control wheels, throttles, and add-ons for the console between the pilot and copilot.

The cargo/troop area is very busy. There are fence-like supports behind the seats, the troop seats, and seat belts for each seat. Additionally, this side of the bulkhead behind the pilots has one part which consists of the whole bulkhead with open doors, plus add-on details and a shelf. There is also a passenger door for the left side of the plane and a double-door cargo door for the right side. The molded-in areas where these doors go has to be removed before putting in all that detail.

I prepainted the entire cargo area and the seats 02 RLM Grey. I installed the seat belts on the seats before installing the seats. The seat belts are incredibly tiny, and hard to manage. I think I lost four of the first six I tried to install. The wonderful news is that Eduard, obviously knowing my level of ineptitude, includes so many extra belts that even losing that many, I still had some left over at the end. Kudos to the design team for that!!!

After getting all the seat belts and seats installed, I finished assembling the fuselage. With the windows installed and masked, I put the top of the fuselage on. I stuffed the interior with small pieces of cosmetic sponges, which are soft enough not to cause damage but strong enough to prevent overpainting the interior.

Once I had painted the aircraft and applied decals, I put on the finishing touches.

Finishing

Everything went pretty well from this point on. I installed the two cargo doors and the passenger door. Then I added the main landing gear and wheels, the tail wheel, and the engines and props. One of the reasons for holding the engines off is that the PE set contains metal parts for the front of each engine. It looks like some sort of cooling mechanism, and it has to be lined up so that the prop can be installed. It was at this point that I broke the tail wheel off. Fortunately, it broke cleanly, and a little CA made it whole again.

Evaluation

Recommended. The exterior additions are marvelous. The interior additions are also marvelous, but they’re very hard to see through those tiny windows. So not many will ever see all the work I put into those seat belts. Sigh. But I know that they’re in there, and now you know it, too.

Thanks to Eduard for a very nice addition to the Ju-52, and further thanks to IPMS/USA for allowing me to upgrade the Tante Ju.