One of
my other series sub-projects is the Me-163 Komet. I always thought it was an
interesting device, with a number of variations that would provide a good visual
model display. I believe I saw such a model display at the USAF Museum in
Dayton OH when I visited there.
I’ve
built most of the variants of the Me-163 itself. I think I still have the Special
Hobby Me-163C to do, plus I have future plans to upgrade my Me-163A, which was created
from a resin kit way back when. There are a couple of earlier Lippisch DFS designs
that deserve to be in the lineup as well.
But as
to today’s completion. This is a standard Me-163B, but in captured RAF
markings. The kit is Hobby Boss, in their easy kit version. Nothing special
about the kit; I just never had built one from this line, and the go-to Academy
kit seemed to be a bit hard to acquire for some reason. It was easy enough to
build, as you would expect.
The
markings came from a Rising Decals set of captured German aircraft (RD72057).
If you are ambitious, there are also 109s and Ju-88s on the sheet as well. I
had no problems with the decals.
In fact,
I had no real problems with the model altogether (though I did find out after
the fact that I had made something of an error on painting the rudder). Murphy’s
Law is a constant on the production line here in 72 Land.
This is
completed aircraft #492 (9 aircraft, 0 ordnance, 3 vehicles for the year 2018),
finished in June of 2018.
No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth or melted into a puddle of suet (though that has been a close one). But summer is not a strong time for modelling, especially when temps here in the Great Northwest get into the mid-90s. It appears that we are heading into a few days of high 70s and low 80s, so hopefully I can get a few things accomplished. In fact, I have two completions written up and just didn't have the photos taken. I was hoping to have picked up a small photo booth before this point, but other spending (vacation, fence, display case, replacement garage door opener) has taken the top priority spots. But here, at least, is the first of the finished items.
One of
the longtime sub-projects I have been working on is the Eurofighter Typhoon.
The RAF has been very cooperative in painting them up in attractive
commemorative schemes each year, and Xtradecal has done a fine job in providing
1:72 scale decals as each new set of markings become available. I suspect we’ll
be seeing the RAF100 tails showing up in decal form before long. Though it is
simple to the point of being a tad disappointing, it will still need to be
added to my long line of Eurofighters in the cabinet. This is #12 in the
series.
But I
decided to look beyond the RAF for the next few special schemes. Both the
Luftwaffe and the Italian AF have taken the plunge into garish markings (and
even the Spanish AF has done some Tiger tails, though no decals have surfaced
that I am aware of). Italeri went to the trouble of doing a new boxing of their
iteration of the Eurofighter with four specials commemorating the 100th
anniversary of four squadrons (9th, 10th, 12th,
and 18th) in 2017.
Along
with these four Eurofighters, the display also featured the first F-35 to be
given special tail markings, for another squadron anniversary. Although the
markings aren’t terribly lavish, they are unique, and as soon as someone does
the decals I’ll have to put together an F-35A to complete the set. Of course
this is only the first set of specials for the F-35, and many will be coming
along in the next few years. I pulled most of this information from The
Aviationist website.
This
first completed example is from the 10th Group. I painted the spine
and tail Black. This particular set was designed by Lt Giovanni D’Antonio. The
designs were premiered at the Grosseto airbase on 6-24-2017. For the green and
brown camo version the spine and canopy coloring is all decal, which I decided
would be a better one to do after I had the experience of at least one under my
belt. The decals performed as expected, though I did use SuperSol and SuperSet
to help them snuggle down into the panel lines.
The
Italeri kit is not really the best of the available Eurofighter kits – that
goes to the most recent Revell toolling – but it isn’t bad at all. Decals are
presented for all four schemes, but you’ll note that the red/white/green stripe
at the base of the tail is only given in two copies on the decal sheet. So if
you want to build all four, you’ll either need to buy two Italeri boxes (two
kits come in each box) or plan on painting that stripe. I can’t imagine that
will be a difficult job.
This is
completed aircraft #491 (8 aircraft, 0 ordnance, 3 vehicles for the year 2018),
finished in June of 2018.
Travelling
with the Daimler armored car across the finish line was the Textron M1117 Guardian
as produced by Trumpeter. As you can probably tell, this vehicle is designed with a
mine-resistant lower hull due to the amount of IEDs that US forces were encountering
in the middle east. The angled surfaces also apparently helps out in deflecting
RPG hits. It is used for many of the same roles as the HUMVEE, though the M1117
has a lot more armor protection.
The
Trumpeter kit is a pretty simple build. About the only thing that speaks
against it is they have chosen to use rubber wheels instead of plastic. This
seems to cause weird chemical reactions over time, and still needs to be painted
in order to look at least passably realistic. Maybe these are of a different chemical
composition than earlier rubber wheels; only time will tell.
Once
again, this model shows up the problem with large areas of single-colored skin
and the downside of not weathering models. I suspect on the next armor kit I
will do some experimentation with at least a bit of color moderation on the
larger panels. Maybe some post-shading to emphasize the natural shadows? That will hopefully reduce the toylike nature of a small armor piece like this. This is completed vehicle #18 (7 aircraft, 3 vehicles, 0 ordnance for 2018), finished in May of 2018.
