Little Nazzy Firecracker

[Steve Nelson]

Just finished this one on Monday. It's the Academy 1/72 Me-163 Komet. I did it as a "quick build," trying to avoid adding much in the way of aftermarket or modifications. I did add some tape seatbelts, and the "porthole" bulkheads behind the cockpit (curiously missing from the kit) and made the pitot and dorsal antenna from wire.

Colors are Gunze Acrylics. I used their RLM 76 Lichtblau and 83 Dunklegrun straight from the bottle, but I didn't like their interpretation of RLM 81 Braunviolet (too green to my eye) so I made my own with a two-to-one mix of Olive Drab and Chocolate Brown. I couldn't find any two references that agreed on camouflage patterns, and no two Komets appear to have been painted alike anyway, so I just made up a generic splinter pattern for the wings, and did a heavy mottle on the fuselage and tail. After glosscoat and decals, I added a wash of artist's oils to the control surface hinge lines.

Despite the negative reputation of Academy decals (and my last disastrous experience with them) I bit the bullet and used the kit decals. The went on surprisingly well using Gunze "Mr. Mark Softer" and some Solvaset here and there..although I still had to run an X-acto along the panel lines of the larger decals to get them to conform. I had to source the tail swastikas from an old Superscale sheet.

The kit is very nice, and went together with almost no fuss. It also comes with the transporter vehicle, which I didn't bother to build. I may still add a bit of weathering, mainly paint chips with a silver Prismacolor pencil. (the wings were of course wood, so there wouldn't be much weathering there.)

Cheers!

Steve

[bdk]

The wings were covered with fabric over the wood, weren't they? Did the Germans use silver pigmented dope for UV protection under the topcoat on their fabric covered surfaces?

[Steve Nelson]

I found these photos of an (rather battered) unrestored Komet..your probably right about the doped fabric over the wood, but it appears the Messerschmitt used a red-oxide primer of some sort. I was just thinking of adding a bit of chipping around the access panels on the fuselage.

SN

[tom d. friedman]

the swastika decal issue is the biggest dumb assed issue in the model industry!! even die casts made in europe make a snit over it. i'm jewish, not offended by the swastika in any way. i believe in historical accuracy. by excluding it from models only increases the dumbing up & revisional eye & mental candy of history, let alone aviation history. this topic has been discussed on a number of past threads.

[The Inspector]

I can't see any reason for Messershmitt to use silver dope on the fabric, the thing was a desperation, last ditch, throw away flying bomb, so making it to the 100 hour check probably wasn't on the maintenance scheduling plan. More than once the aircraft after landing, the retreival crew would find melted soup where the pilot had been thanks to the acid tanks leaking into the cockpit and melting the poor guy inspite of his rubberized suit.

Most decal makers now provide odd looking bits of black decal along the edges of their sheets which can be 'maneuvered' into the swastikas for the verticals.

[JOHN MILLER]

looks GREAT

[Mgawa]

Do you have top wings images of this preserved machine?

[b747cf]

Here are some photos I have of it.




Mark Fidler

[Mgawa]

Thank you! I did not know it have red brown inside exhaust pipe

[spookythecat]

Cool! I pull that one off the shelf often but always work on something else instead. One of these days i'll actually start it.

[Steve Nelson]

Thanks for the kind words, all!

Here's the website where I found the pics of the preserved machine:
http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/howard_mason/me163/ There are three pages of detail photos. While unrestored, it does appear to have been at least partially overpainted at some point, so it's not very reliable as a source of color/camouflage pattern information (not from photos anyway.)

I think the rust color inside the tailpipe really is rust..on an operational machine it would probably be scorched metal.

SN

[tom d. friedman]

herr field marshall hermann goering came up with the most popular nickname for the me - 163.... that being "the farting flea." an insignia was even created for 1 of the squadrons as their official symbol / identification / coat of arms.

[Mgawa]

Farting Flea

[Second Air Force]

Beautiful model, Steve! I built ship 15 of 2/JG400 in 1/48th scale a long time ago.

Tom, if you look closely you'll see the flea badge of 2/JG400 on Steve's model. Here is a larger copy:


Incidentally, a good book on the subject of the Komet is Rocket Fighter by Mano Ziegler. Lots of development information and combat flying, too. It's a sobering thing to read--the airplane was more dangerous to its pilots than the enemy they faced.

Another aside--I just found that Rudolph Opitz passed away in May of 2010 at 99 years of age. He was very heavily entwined in the Me-163 project and a highly respected glider expert.

[Steve Nelson]

Yep..I couldn't resist the "farting flea" sqadron logo. I believe the motto translates as something lke "Only a Flea, but WOW!!"

SN