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Macchi MC200
scale 1/72

by Ivan Ferrando

Kit: RCR

The reading of the book “The Wings on the roof of Europe” by Roger Jugalir dedicated to the pilots from Valle d'Aosta (Aosta Valley), gave birth to the idea of constructing the “Macchi 200.” I thought it was very interesting to make the model of a plane flown by pilot of our small region, namely Lieutenant Floriano Gomiero, not even listed among the great Italian aces, but not for this less important. For the biography of F. Gomiero I suggest you reading the beautiful article written by Roger Jugalir. The RCR kit it is a short-run composed of little pieces in black plastic, a little bit rough on the whole. The struts of the undercarriage and the motor are of white metal and the cockpit, with the exception of the seat, is photoengraved.

At first sight, I realized that the construction would be rather difficult, or rather a lot of time would be spent puttying and joining, indeed not an impossible work (just a little bit long). Another defect of the kit is that the panels’ lines are slightly engraved and need to be trued. The shapes of the pieces of the kit do not thoroughly match the drawings carried by the monograph “Wings,” but I did not feel like undertaking such a huge modification work, therefore I left everything the way it was.



Motor and undercarriage pits The undercarriage pits of the 200 are opened, consequently the engine’s mountings and several pipes are visible. I have constructed the structure of the motor castle with copper wire according to the schemes in the book CMPR N° 61. I used plasticard for the rear side of the engine bay. Once mounted the two parts, I made some cables and pipes with copper wire of various diameters. I had also to add the mountings for the undercarriage covers, in plasticard, to the struts and to use some copper wire to simulate the brakes’ cables. I have also used some photogravures left from the previous construction of a Mc 202. The undercarriages pits got grey paint, typical of the Aermacchi production.





Interior : I have constructed the cockpit using the photogravures of the kit, with the exceptions of the safety-belts, which came from a sheet of RCR photogravures. Positioning the cockpit inside the two halves of the fuselage was a little bit of a problem due to the lack of reference-marks on the halves. The cockpit was painted in anticorrosive green followed by some oil washings and a light dry brushing. The instruments panel got matt black paint.



Motor, propeller and cowling : As the motor, in white metal, is visible once the model is finished, I had to add some rods and pipes. I made the exhaust manifolds from scratch using a thin brass tube, ovaled with a flat clamp. The bulges on the engine’s cowling are supplied by RCR, but they have to be glued one by one with great care in order to position them the right way: to do so, I suggest that you use a bicomponent glue with a drying-up time long enough. Seams between the bulges and the cowling have been sealed by a bit of Milliput worked with humid cotton buds: if you do a neat job it won’t be even necessary to sandpaper. I painted the motor in black, dry-brushing with metallic colors. The propeller is painted in black with yellow tips: I have added some wires to the base according to what was pictured in some photos of the real aircraft.




Fuselage and wings Assembling the fuselage halves and the wings required puttying all the seams. I worked the following way: I spread a bit of Milliput by humid cotton buds, sandpapering after it dried and using some cyanic-acrylate glue to smooth the seams sandpapering again where necessary. After such a process, the lines of the planes had be engraved again.





Canopy: Unfortunately I damaged the vacuum form supplied with the box while I was cutting it in order to obtain the correct version (the Mc 200 had various types of canopy and with that one supplied by RCR it is possible to obtain nearly all of them). Therefore, I had to vacuum form another piece using a canopy of the Mc 202 as a template. The two lateral windshields have been cut from a sheet of transparent plastic.





Details: I modelled the Venturi tube from some sprue and I used a needle for the machine-guns.


Coloration I reproduced the so called “fried eggs” camouflage pattern. I used the colours by Mister Kit diluted with about 20% of water. I tried to dilute them more, but it didn’t work well. The white colour is by Tamiya and the Camouflage Tawny is a mixture of Humbrol.



The underside of the aircraft got Camouflage Gray paint in many coats in order to cover up the black plastic thoroughfully.

Now the spots, starting from those in Camouflage Yellow, which needed two coats, to finish with those in Camouflage Tawny, which are inside the former. The Tawny came from a mixture of Humbrol colours to have a greater covering power. I could have also used Mister Kit colours, but I was afraid of damaging the model would it be necessary to re-paint the Tawny spots.


At this point, I painted the white strip on the fuselage using the Tamiya tape for masking and the bronze ring by naca.

From now on, the standard procedure: Transparent gloss, decals (coming from SkyModel and Tauro Model sheets), transparent gloss again, black oil washing to highlight the panelling, transparent mat, chalk powder to simulate the exhaust and the machine guns’ stains and the final transparent mat. I spread the transparent mat in many, very diluted coats in order to be able to check the result.




Special thanks to Angelo Brioschi for his invaluable help in interpreting the black and white photos in order to get the right colour camouflage pattern



Bibliography : Macchi Mc 200 - Collana Ali d'Italia Ali sul Tetto d'Europa - Roger Juglair - Musumeci Editore Notiziario CMPR N° 61 Macchi MC 200/202/205 - Collana Aérodetails