I’ve used the Italeri 1/72 Ju-87D-5/7 kit (1070) to build a Bulgarian Stuka from the WW2 period. The Bulgarian Air Force had 12 Ju-87 R-2s (delivered 1942) and 40 D-5s (1944). Doras actively participated in the war against Germany, attacking the retreating Army Group E forces. Stuka’s surgical strike capability helped encircled Bulgarian forces escape the German “pockets”. After the war ended the Ju-87 were still in use for some time, later being replaced by Il-2 M-3s and Il-10s.

As I was reorganizing my storage space I came across the kit, which had no box, and decided to “quick-build it”. Italeri’s plastic is excellent, so construction time was minimal. Fit has been very good except for the back wing-fuse joint at the bottom, which leaves about 0,7mm gap.  I changed the wing bomb racks layout a bit – added sway braces for 50kg bombs and filled in the recesses for the bigger ones. The supports from those were cut off and positioned in the fuselage recesses to simulate the retracted braces of the central pylon.

What had the bird waiting longest were the decals I was trying to create myself on decal paper – the St. Andrew’s crosses and the black underwing numbers. First time printing my own designs – and it shows through the sizes of the crosses – should be as big as the white squares, but the printer either shrinked or expanded them too much. Kit stencils were used, and the “white 36” numbers on the fuse sides came from an old Il-10 KP kit (hence the yellowing). I used a local variation of Future/Klear as a base and cover for all the decals, and needed no decal solution whatsoever.

Paints are Revell. White is matt 05, blue – 49, top dark color – straight 69. The green is a mix of 1 part light blue (49), 2 parts lake green (48) and three parts bronze green (65). Weathering is thinned enamels for pannel lines, water-soluble oil burnt sienna (H2Oil by “Van Gogh”) and Alclad II Engine Manifold.

Quickboost exhausts for the kit were used. They were painted Revell 37, then covered in patinators and pastel powders. R/O’s machinegun was skipped.

Matt coat – Revell 02.

Antenna and steps snapped while I mishandled the model during the “photo session”…