George's modeling page: The Finnish Fiat. A 1/48 scale kit by Secter.

Secter Fiat G.50 in 1/48 scale.

Had a Group build going on at the Facebook $20 modeler's Facebook group's page, The20clubthebigshow that featured an Italian theme. What better time to add to my Finnish Air Force collection by building Oiva Tuominen's Fiat G.50!

Oiva "Oippa" Tuominen's FA-26 without spinner.

FA-26, at this time with a spinner over the prop hub.

I've had the Secter Fiat for a while. These are somewhat hard to find. Hasegawa actually re-boxed this kit under their own label, so you may find one of those if you can't turn up the Secter kit. In other scales, Airfix made a nice 1/72 scale kit many years ago, and Special Hobby offers one in 1/32 scale which is probably very nice.

The Secter kit and some of my references.

My impression of the Secter kit is that it's an acceptable kit, but nothing extraordinary. The instrument panel is quite nice but the rest of the interior needs a little work to make it stand out. In the photo below, you can see where I dressed up the instrument panel with a few dial decals.

I added some PE seat harnesses and a few details to the rudder pedals and a control stick on the right side which was missing.

Interior installed, ready to close the fuselage up.

Assembly went along fine. The upper decking didn't quite match with the fuselage sides so considerable sanding was required there. The wing to fuselage fit required a small amount of filler. I cut the cockpit access doors to display them open.

Soon it was time to paint. After priming I followed my usual practice and painted the yellow recognition bands. These are always easier to do over primer than over any colors.

While that was drying, I started playing around with a few little details including adding brake lines and door handles.

Next came the fun part, applying the Italian camouflage! Sand and spinach over light gray.

I got to use my new Badger Velocity airbrush to apply the green blotches. The Velocity has an adjustable trigger stop so you can use it as a single action. This gives you a lot of control. I was pretty happy with the result. While not perfect it came out pretty well.

That satisfying moment when the masking tape comes off!

I was now time to apply decals. Secter gave you a really amazing selection of markings for this kit, over a dozen schemes to choose from! The only problem is that the decals themselves are not of the best quality. While they are printed nicely, they are quite thick and a little translucent. I tried one on my paint mule and found that they did react well to Micro Sol, so I went ahead and used them.

Finnish Fiat in the original Italian paint weathered badly. Large areas of paint flaked off so I tried to show that with some dry-brushed aluminum paint on several locations.

Showing some wear and tear.

Final assembly proceeded normally. The last job was to affix the antenna wire which proved to be a bit of a challenge. I used an elastic thread, Modelkasten, which worked out okay. It still gave me a few fits, but I managed to get it installed.