Finnish air force on it's way!

This is a bit of an ice-breaking diversion as I struggle to get back into modelling again. I bought a couple of really cheap and simple 1/144 aircraft just to get used to putting paint to plastic once again.

However, they are connected with my big Finnish Army project as the Me109G and JU88 were both used by the Finnish Air Force (very successfully) during the later part of World War 2. In fact I was quite stunned to find out just how skilled the Finnish fighter pilots were as they scored a huge number of kills compared to their losses...

"The Finnish Air Force achieved 663 victories with the Messerschmitt Bf 109Gs during 1943 and 1944, while losing 32 fighters in combat or to anti-aircraft fire.16 aircraft were lost in accidents and 8 were destroyed on ground. 23 pilots were lost - an impressive exchange ratio of 25 : 1." [kurfurst.org - Finnish Air Force Performance Trials on Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-2, WNr. 14 783 'MT-215']

The models I picked up were the Minicraft Ju88 and the Eduard Me109G. I chose 1/144 over 1/72 for two reasons, first - as I said - I just want a quick and easy project to do but also I wanted to 'scale' my air component of my Rapid Fire! army. What I mean is that if one imagines a 1/72 army on a table top, then imagines the scale height that an aircraft would be flying over your table I guess it would look more 1/144 than 1/72! This is just my dodgy theory - a lot of war gamers simply seem to use 1/72 planes if they are using 1/72 figures.

Anyway, I'm quite excited as these will make a nice change from vehicles.

Edit: Wow! I don't feel so stupid about my 1/144 scale planes theory now as I just found this post over on the Megablitz blog that expresses the same idea..1/144 scale aircraft - Messerschmitt Bf 109