Steinberger ’76 (Area 88)

The finished model:

The scene:

In a touching sidebar story, we meet Area 88’s luckiest pilot, Carlyle Benditz on his last day at the base. Despite having survived his 3-year mercenary contract – quite literally without a scratch – Benditz politely refuses Saki’s offer to renew and is honourably discharged. Although we’ve never actually seen Benditz before, he’s always been there, somewhere, in the background, having been one of the core original recruitment group. However, with the deaths of Hoover and Bugsy, and with Benditz’s imminent departure, this leaves Greg Gates as the sole remaining member of that group.

During his peaceful commercial flight to Paris, Benditz dozes off and flashes back to the time that the West German ace, Hoover swooped in to save the Englishman Benditz from certain death after an enemy MiG-21 gets him squarely into its sights. In gratitude, Benditz offers up a bottle of “the good stuff” – a Steinberger ’76. After landing in Paris, and despite his French hotelier’s surprise, he orders a bottle of Hoover’s favourite German wine and raises a glass to his fallen companion..

The next day, minutes after finally landing at Heathrow airport in London, his luck finally runs out.

Check out the original manga scene from Mission 069 “Bandit Report” here:

The story:

I love this chapter. Perhaps I should have seen it coming, but the sudden twist at the end landed on me like a gut punch. If you haven’t read the manga pages above, I suggest you do so.

I think it feels a bit like a “behind the scenes” look at life at Area 88, and I love how it adds a depth to the overall story by adding some background via a character that’s supposedly “always been there.” We are quite familiar with the drama that envelopes Shin, Mickey, and Saki… but we sometimes forget there are other faces in the crowd, with stories of their own.

This chapter recalls many of the earlier chapters that featured the “one and done” type of self-contained story, and it doesn’t hurt that Benditz’s flashback gives us a brief chance to really see a favourite secondary character in action. Hoover’s death happened off-screen, so this felt like a great chance to give him his moment in the sun too.

The battle scene, though short, is also quite compelling. It’s wrapped up in a neat little narrative… the luckiest pilot at Area 88 continues his streak after being saved by our old friend Hoover, and then it’s tied to an artifact, a bottle of ’76 Steinberger wine.

So how could I resist adding a mini-diorama to my 1/144 Area 88 project? It features three of the iconic Area 88 planes – with an explosion as well!

The kit(s):

A-4E/F Skyhawk by Platz
IAI Kfir C-2 by Revell
MiG-21PF Fishbed-D by Airfix

The build:

This was actually quite a tricky build on a few fronts.

First up, this is the first time I’ve built one of the Platz A-4E kits. I won this one in an Yahoo Japan auction a few years ago, and it’s been patiently waiting in my stash for me to work up the courage to tackle it. What a beautiful little kit. I’ve got plans for a few more of these as part of my 1/144 Area 88 project, so we’ll be seeing this again. I did have a devil of a time getting an LED bulb to sit properly in the engine area – it was SO TINY! I also decided to use white glue instead of the usual CA glue. I’ve heard over time that the CA glue can break down and cause a chemical reaction that can ruin models, so I decided to use it sparingly in these kinds of applications – basically near anything metal (like wires).

Another tricky part was how to squeeze all three planes onto my standard project base – which, if you’re keep track, is basically the size of an upside down coaster. In the scene, the Kfir swoops in behind the MiG-21 and destroys it before it can take the shot on the A-4E it’s chasing. That’s quite a line up, so even though it isn’t really accurate, the best I could come up with was having the Kfir nose down above and slightly behind the flaming MiG-21, while the A-4E makes a slight bank to the right and up as it escapes. Not perfect, but I think it does the job.

The hardest part of this build though, were the decals. I use homemade waterslide decals for most of my projects. Generally they work well, but the transparent ones suffer if they’re put over any background other than white. They’re so transparent, and the inkjet printer ink is so thin, that they basically disappear. So I tried a solution I learned from one of the Japanese modellers I follow on Twitter (‎@Wolllcraft3) and had some success with. First you paint the decal area white, apply the decals (and a coat of Future) and then mask them as carefully as possible BEFORE applying the main fuselage coat. The application of tiny bits of tape is tedious, but it’s the only way I’ve found to be able to have the decals still be visible and generally blended in with the background. If someone’s got a better way to do it, I’m all ears! Leave a comment below!

One other thing to mention. Given how the manga chapter this build is based on plays out – basically that Carlyle Benditz has been part of the Area 88 team from the start – I didn’t want to have just some generic insignia for his plane. There are a few “background” shots of planes with interesting insignia’s that are left to the reader’s imagination. However, for Benditz’s A4-E, I decided to use the insignia that appears on the Area 88 poster (which I believe came with one of the LD box sets, but don’t quote me on that). The image on the poster shows an A4-E taking off from the Area 88 mountain base alongside Shin’s F-20 Tigershark – so the timing seems right. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.