A JET FAMILY

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During the war, the Germans managed to develop an amazing number of innovations in their aircraft under rather difficult conditions. And -not surprising- after that war, German scientists were carried off in all directions. Russians, Americans and British were quite happy to pick their brains, and soon the German innovations started to trickle into their new aeroplanes. On the page concerning early jets I already wrote about descendants of a single German prototype meeting in combat. And here is that disturbed family...

The Focke Wulf Ta 183A "Hückebein". This was a design that just did not make it. The order for prototypes was given in February 1945, and first flights were planned for May/June 1945. The war just did not last long enough for that... The English ran into factories that were building the prototypes, the Russians discovered all plans and test results in Berlin. The Ta 183 was little more then an engine with a plane wrapped around it; swept wings, a short fuselage, a leaning vertical and high placed horizontal tail plane. Americans and British on one side, Russians on the other side started building... The kit is a 1:48 AMtech kit, also sold by Tamiya. The new kit was widely praised on the Internet, and I can second all the praise. I think this is the best kit I ever build. Everything fitted perfect, in the finished model there is still an unglued part because it fitted so neat, I preferred not to tamper with it after test fitting. The kit is also well designed, without weird or tiresome constructions. One would build 5 of these, just for fun... I could not resist tinkering with this perfection. I cut the canopy to show off the fine detailed cockpit, and cut the flaps to reposition them. And this was the kit that helped me find my way with bare natural metal finish. I used Model Master metalizer, but I did not buff it with a cloth, but polished it with a polishing iron (something like the back of a teaspoon. The result is instant weathering, and much tougher then normal buffed metalizer. I have a full build review on Modelling Madness

The first follow up to teh Hückebein wa sthe Russian MiG 15, in december 1947. The aircraft was more or less build around the British Rolls Royce Nene engine. When it appeared in the sky over Korea, it was a rather nasty surprice to the Americans, who rushed their "counterplane" into active service. The kit is a 1: 48 Tamiya kit. The modern Tamiya kits have a good reputation, and this kit shows why; everything fits, and it almost builds itself. The kit already offers the possibility to take of the tail and show of a nice engine. I decided to add 2 detail sets by Aires. One for a much more accurate and detailed engine, and one to open up the weapon-tray and electronics bay. The detail set for the engine was just great, the detail set for weapons and electronics bay was a little less; I found it hard to figure out how to incorporate it in the Tamiya kit. And the weapons under the nose are less eye-catching then I expected.

The F-86 Sabre is the 'other son'of the Hückebein. The airplae flew in 1947, but the Americans did not rush it into service at first, because they had the F 80 Shooting Star. And then the MiG 15 appeared... The kit was an old Monogram 1:48 kit, a nice and very complete kit, with possibilities to open up a weapons bay, and the cockpit and the airbrakes. The kit was in metal-grey plastic, a reminder of times when not everyone painted his models. There were no special problems building it, although painting and decals were not as easy. The yellow war stripes for Korea, on fuselage and wings, are missing be3cause they were not included in the decals; one was expected to paint them on, which scared me off. And the kit decals had not aged very well. All in all, I should have invested in an after market decal sheet. Ah well...

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