Home  |  What's New  |  Features  |  Gallery  |  Reviews  |  Reference  |  Forum  |  Search

IMAM (Romeo) Ro 57bis

 

Special Hobby, 1/72 scale

S u m m a r y
Catalogue Number: Special Hobby SH72045 - IMAM [Romeo] Ro 57bis
Scale: 1/72
Contents and Media: 44 parts on two sprues in mid-grey injection moulded plastic, 2 clear plastic parts, 46 nicely moulded resin parts, 12 PE parts on one fret and 1 clear film instrument face for the PE instrument panel. Sharply printed decals for two aircraft and 8 page instruction booklet containing history, parts plan, build diagrams and paint/decal drawings.
Price: USD$27.96  from Squadron.com
Review Type: FirstLook
Advantages: Very rare subject, highly detailed.
Disadvantages: Build instructions on undercarriage a bit vague and one decal marking not mentioned in instructions.
Recommendation: Recommended


Reviewed by Glen Porter


 Special Hobby's 1/72 scale Ro-57bis is available online from Squadron.com
 

FirstLook

 

I've got to admit that when Brett gave me this kit to review, I could find no references for it whatsoever. Fortunately, a friend of mine, Ian Krestensen, is a mine of knowledge on these odd-ball aircraft and was able to supply me with the required information:

The Ro 57 prototype's first flight was in early 1939. Powered by two Fiat A 74 RC 38 engines, it was neither fast enough, nor was its rate of climb good enough to be a twin engined interceptor and it was re-appraised as a fighter-bomber [Ground attack aircraft]. Renamed the Ro57bis, it entered service with the 97 Gruppo in February 1943.

Trust Special Hobby to release a subject like this. Lets face it, you could paint this aircraft in any colour scheme you wanted to and who could ever say you were wrong?

As usual, this 1/72 scale Special Hobby kit is very nicely done. There are just a few little niggles that we will get to later.

All the usual parts are presented in grey plastic, fuselage, wings, under-carriage legs and props with engines, cowlings, exhausts and most interior parts in resin. There's a small PE frett for the bomb fins and the instrument panel is optional PE or resin. The canopy is injection moulded and it's a little on the thick side. I think this is one time they would have been better off doing it in Vacform (bloody modellers! Never happy).

 

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

The decals cover two aircraft, both in the same colour scheme, Dark Olive Green upper and Sky Grey lower. However, on the decal sheet, two Italian Tri-colour panels for the rudder are supplied but they are not shown anywhere in the instructions. Because of a lack of references, I was not able to work out how exactly the under-carriage legs went together. Again, I guess, it wouldn't matter how you did it, people would be hard pressed to say you were wrong!

What an interesting model this will make. After building it, you could take it along to a club meeting and run a guessing competition. I doubt many would get it right.

Recommended.

Thanks to MPM/Special Hobby for the review sample.

Review Text Copyright © 2005 by Glen Porter
Images Copyright © 2005 by Brett Green
Page Created 18 May, 2005
Last updated 17 May, 2005

Back to HyperScale Main Page

Back to Reviews Page