The
aircraft: no account is necessary for the legendary Me-262A; she was the first
operative Jet-engined fighter and the Allies were lucky enough for Hitler's stupidity
to stop the project in order to use it as fighter-bomber. If mass used, the 262
could have inflicted severe losses to the Allied formation that raided Germany at that
time. She gave them a bad time however, until Germany
surrendered. That
Great Man that was Gen. Adolf Galland once said: "It's a dream driven
by angels".
Click on
images below to see larger images
The
model: This is a very old model. I built it long ago in 1980, following step
by step a noteworthy article on a specialist magazine of the time. The box is of
the disappeared Italian firm Polistil, that produced a few kits in the '70s.
It's a shame this firm has stopped because their kits were very fine. In those years
I was a novice in this hobby and I didn't know the presence of the
filler, nor did I use it.
I
hand-brushed the kit using Humbrol Enamel paints (as usual for me) and I
followed the very fine Christopher Chant book's as guide, "Aircraft of
W.W.2". The colour's table of this fighter depicted it painted
as per the standard pattern of that era, like the believed right Greens-camo scheme.
At that time the official knowledge called for RLM 70/71/65 with light
grey sides for almost all the German fighters. So I used Humbrol H.91, 30
and 65 respectively plus H.64 sides (background and blotches of 91).
The cockpit was carefully scratchbuilt using ...a mere cardboard (I didn't
know the plasticard!) although invisible after the canopy was closed.
I
wanted to display a III Staffel/JG7 n.8 aircraft of the famous "Kommando
Nowotny" unit, in the Spring of 1945. I observed many photos of the real
subject also, to try to do my best ;-)
Many
greetings to all the ARCair friends!
Paolo
De Sanctis
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