This was the first Trumpeter kit I have ever built and I would have to say that I was fairly pleased with the quality of the kit and the way she went together. There are some fit issues which may have been specific to my kit or perhaps to the kit itself. I had minor issues with the canopy fitting the fuselage properly as well as the engine nacelles. The canopy issue was taken care of by using super glue and holding it in place. The canopy build up was too narrow and had to be stretched open a bit to fit the rails. A bit of putty was required for the nacelles and it proved a bit tricky due to the contours of the pieces involved. The decal sheet is a tad light giving only one option and there is no stencilling, just national markings and individual aircraft code. I purchased aftermarket decals ( Sky decals ) which provides numerous options for finish. The SM 79 was used as both a bomber or torpedo attack aircraft. If you are a stickler for detail watch what paint job you choose to apply. The torpedos included look great when built and two are supplied with the kit although one torpedo was the standard war load due to performance issues if two were carried. The landing gear, while looking quite frail is very sturdy and nicely supports the aircraft and looks to scale. The interior is quite sparse so if you are a scratch builder this aircraft is screaming out for interior detail work. The engines look nice tucked inside their nacelles, quite detailed but easy to construct. As always, read over the instruction sheet. This kit comes with a booklet style sheet and I would recommend you look it over in it's entirety. As with nearly all kits, there are some steps you may want to leave until the end in order to avoid breaking off tiny pieces that stick out. I put approx. 50 hours into the building of my kit so if one breaks down the cost of the kit into time spent, this is not a bad deal. I have no hesitation recommending this kit to others. She builds up to a fairly impressive size, not to different than say a B-25. If you are looking for something different or have a love affair with Italian aircraft, get this one for your stash. Please check out my photos of my build that I will upload.

I am not finished yet, pieces are all in place just hafta figure out home I'm gonna paint the design on the craft. If you look online at color images of the sm 79-II you will find many amazing designs, I just can't make my mind up. As for the model itself, not difficult, not time consuming only complaint is lack of airmen in the kit, there should b at least four or five men in the kit, pilot and copilot, two belly gunners and a top turret gunner. Otherwise I can't wait to paint.

And that is, the more detail a kit has (especially engines), the harder it will be to fit it all together. The engine detail on this kit is very good; but I could see even before I tried to fit the engine, with its excellent head details, that the cowlings would not fit around them. Period. What a headache lots of putty and sending and repaint to make it look decent. The reviewer wrote an excellent, and accurate review on this kit; It is plain to see, with the lack of interior detail that the aircraft was originally touted as an airliner it makes for an interesting build and display of an ugly but deadly duckling, designed originally in the early/mid thirties. The painting scheme for the kit is indeed odd, but I did find pictures of it on the internet, so I went with it, with fairly good results; I painted the cream colored outline with a spray base coat, and hand painted the two other colors around it; I found that to be much easier. I used commercial car striping material for the white midriff. It's nice to find kits like this when you are building everything yu can from WWII; I've had to pay some fairly serious money for out of production kits of all countries involved, though this kit is not cheap by any means. (I'll have to swallow hard for the FW 200 Condor). While the engine cowlings are still a little raggedy ( I prefer to call them weathered), I think it's a fun and funky kit that looks good next to four other countries medium bombers on the shelves nearby.: It was worth the trip.