Above: This is the finished model, done in standard light grey and purple-grey mottle.  The paint was completely airbrushed, a first for me.  Looks rather nice, I think...

Above: Your heritage is showing!  The two dark green panels are windows in the nose, leftovers from the previous bomber incarnations of the kit.  They're green because they're showing the inside of the cockpit colour.  There's another window on the starboard side of the nose as well!

Problems:

One of the most obvious problems that this kit has is that there are windows in the forward fuselage.  The G series night fighters had solid noses as well as solid fuselage sides.  The C series bombers (and maybe even a few night fighters) retained the glass bomb-aiming windows on the sides and bottom of the nose.  These are provided as glass panels in the kit, and have to be installed and judiciously filled with putty before you can paint them over.  There's no mention of this in the instructions, but the pictures of the G-1 on the side of the box don't show windows, so someone at AMT figured out the goof.

There are also mounting points for the dive breaks (which are themselves included)  which have to be filed off, and the aerial that normally fits in near the wing fairing has to be moved back along the tail.  At least the instructions provide some warning about this, although it would have been nice if they could have just made a new hole for you.  Instead, you have to fill the old one and drill a new one.

Overall, the cockpit isn't bad, and a black wash over some Testors Euro One Grey (FS 36081) with silver dry brushing makes it look pretty good.  Unfortunately, the instrument panel isn't the greatest fit, so some fidgeting is necessary.  The chairs, while minimal in detail, do at least have seat belts molded on them.  The canopy is also fair, although mine was a bit foggy from the factory, and the framing was not very heavy, making painting a chore.  The real problem is that there is a mounting hole for the radio mast in the center of the canopy frame.  This is fine for the A/C series, but the G's had a small retractable mast behind the cockpit!!  Thus, you even have to fill the canopy on this beast!  Fitting the FuG 350 NAXOS fairing is fun, since there is no special place set aside for it.  The instructions indicate putting it in various positions, but it actually goes on the port side half of the upper row of glazing, on a metal plate.

The biggest, and most distressing, problem with this kit was the engines.  I don't like radial engines very much, so I didn't want to build this as a G-1.  Thus, I settled on the G-6 with Jumo 213 inlines.  In typical German fashion, these engines have a circular radiator in the front, making them appear to be radials when they aren't.  I figured that making a cylinder in the right shape of a 213 wouldn't be very hard.  Well, it is for AMT.  The engines provided are not 213's, although the instructions say they are, but rather Jumo 211's.  I bet you'll be shocked when you find out that the C/R night fighters had 211's, eh?  Sheesh, AMT was too lazy to bother recasting the engines...

To make the best of things, I tried to modify the 211's to look like 213's.  The first step was to sand off the incorrect exhaust pipes and the tell-tale fairing in front of them.  I then had to re-etch the cowl flaps.  A correctly shaped supercharger intake was provided, although it was little more than a shell.  It needed to be filled, sanded and painted.  The 'intake' hole was then drawn in with a Gundammarker.  (Sci-Fi guys always find a use for their favourite tools!)  Surprisingly, the intake fit the engine very well.  The only other detail that needed attention was the flame dampers on the exhaust.  They were provided as semi-circles, when they are, in fact, tubular.

This is where I have to thank Burger King for providing me with my
aftermarket accessories.  I dug through my straw drawer at home and found an old BK straw that was the perfect diameter for the dampers.  I cut four sections and painted them black, then did a jet exhaust wash and covered it with a thin coat of light earth, which looks a lot like rust.  The original 'half suppressors' weren't long enough, either.  The suppressors should extend beyond the engine onto the nacelle.  Thankfully I had enough straw to do that.

Above: This tail-forward view shows the excellent decals (including two-piece Swastikas) included with this otherwise pedestrian kit.  The panel lines in the kit are done with a filed down 0.5 mechanical pencil.  The transparent panel in the fuselage is the EZ 16 DF antenna, which was apparently housed in a plexiglass fairing.  A surprising bit of accuracy for this kit!

The Rest of the Kit:

The instructions for this kit are quite basic, although they are printed on a very large and unwieldy piece of paper.  There is a separate paint plan, but it isn't all that helpful.  The most interesting part to me is that there is a small write up about the Ju-88 on the instructions.  One of the references cited is the Ju-88 in Action book I used when building this kit.  This is ironic, since it is due to this book that I found all the mistakes that I did!  You'd think that if they were going to cite a book, they'd at least make sure their model matched up to it, wouldn't you?  Maybe that's the Ph.D. student in me talking...

Once I had all the kit's grievous errors corrected, I was able to complete the kit.  It is painted in Testors Model Master Acryl (new formula) Light Grey (FS36495) with a custom mix of Tamiya X-16 Purple, XF-2 Flat White, XF-53 Neutral Grey and some Badger Amtrak Blue.  Don't ask me proportions, I don't bother with such things.  I just mix it until it looks right!  The paint was all applied using an airbrush.  That's right, you read it here first.  This is my first model where the external paint has been done COMPLETELY using an airbrush.  Bloody Germans couldn't use hard-edged camouflage, so I was forced to switch tactics to get the fuzzy edges I wanted.  Overall, I must say that once I got the hang of it, I rather enjoyed airbrushing.  It was nerve-wracking, and I didn't like the way you can't easily touch up mistakes, but the effect is so cool that it's worth the effort.  Thanks to the guys at IPMS London who inspired and encouraged me to expand my horizons and try airbrushing! 

The landing gear were done in Testors oil Aluminum and covered with an acrylic black wash.  The detail on them was quite good, and the tires even have the usual 'German-style' ribbing on them.  The cannons were done in Jet Exhaust, and no Schraege Muzik oblique cannons were installed.  The kit's installation was crap, and I had made a couple of barrels myself.  However, on the back of the Ju-88 in Action Pt. 2 I borrowed from Doug (Thanks!), C9+AC was shown to be Muzik-less, so I went with that.

The hardest part of the kit was attaching the FuG 220 radar dipoles, which have to be mounted approximately 45 degrees off the vertical.  There was hardly any place to glue, and it took several tries to get them to stay on.  Like all other parts of the kit, fit was a bit sketchy, and that didn't help either.

Oddly enough, the decals that came with this kit are excellent.  They are Scale Master brand, and went on beautifully.  Your eyes do not deceive you, either.  Those Swastikas on the tail are NOT aftermarket, but actually do come with the kit.  However, they are in two pieces - a 'diamond' and a 'plus' that you have to assemble.  I'm very displeased with the current trend to rewriting history, so the inclusion of appropriate tail markings really improved my opinion of this kit.

To prevent silvering, I first coated the kit in Future floor polish by hand. I then applied the decals, sealed them with more Future, and then airbrushed on a flat coat.  The flat coat was made of Tamiya X-21 Flat Base, Future and some distilled water.  It took a lot of coat to do it, but the final result was beautiful.  Unfortunately, this flat coat is not very durable, so I took some Tamiya X-22 clear, thinned it with water, and then applied it over the flat coat.  When sufficiently thinned, X-22 becomes 'neutral' in shine - meaning it takes on the dullness of the paint under it.  Thus, I was able to add toughness to the flat coat without making it shinier.

Above: This nose view shows several features.  Note the complex and draggy FuG 220 radar dipoles, as well as the FuG 350 Naxos fairing on the canopy.  You can clearly see the 4 20mm cannons in the underfuselage pack, as well.  This view also gives you a good look at the Burger King exhaust suppressors which replace the original semi-circular ones.

I built this kit as a practice run for airbrushing.  I have a number of other Luftwaffe kits I want to build really well (despite some of them being FROGs), and I wanted to get familiar with the techniques I'll need.  In that respect, the Ju-88 from AMT was a fantastic kit.

It's also nice that it turned out well.  I'm very pleased with the final result, although for those who are accuracy freaks, this kit will pose no end of problems.  Overall, the kit is an odd mix of really good elements and really poor elements.  If you haven't built any planes in a while, you can probably throw this one together pretty quick.  It's a fun build, and once painted it looks pretty nice.  Sure, there are better kits out there, but this one is cheap and passable.  What more do you want from AMT?