A Tail of Two Komets

[Mottlemaster]

I had first thouht of building the Meng models  Me 163 in the markings of the captured airframe piloted by Eriv Brown in July 1945 . After some reserch i discoverd that this aircraft had its rocket motor removed and it was only used for glider tests .

As i want to display the aircraft with its engine being maintained i have decided to do the meng kit in Luftwaffe markings .

 

I will be doing Eric Browns aircraft useing the old Hasegawa kit . This one i will leave the engine out and if i can find a good resin 1/32 Eric brown ,he will be in the cockpit .

 

P1030535 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

P1030536 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

P1030537 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

P1030538 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

Probably going to be  a slow start as iv got a Classic Airframes Do 17z to complete for the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations (MTO) in WW2 GB III .

[Aardvark]

1 hour ago, Mottlemaster said:

 

Is there anything about Me-163S, Me-163D and Ju-248 / Me-263 in this album?

 

B.R.

Serge

[CliffB]

The maintenance idea sounds great and that's interesting info about Eric Brown's aircraft too 

[PeterB]

Lousy photo as I had to do a time exposure and must have wobbled a bit.

Apparently this is claimed to be the actual machine Brown flew "hot" in Germany before the engine was removed. It was in the museum at Cranfield College of Aeronautics when I visited in 1969, but in around 1975 it was moved out and is now at East Fortune in the Scottish National Museum of Flight - the info about Brown is from their website. I have absolutely no idea if the paintwork is original but it looks feasible to me - RLM81 mottle over RLM82 on the fuselage I suspect but maybe  over very weathered RLM 76 on the tail, comparing it with the presumably RLM76 unders - unless they are the supposed RLM84 if it existed. They seem to have completely repainted it since and the illustration on their website now looks wrong to me for what it is worth.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited November 14, 2020 by PeterB

[Col.]

A worthy subject choice Alistair. These two kits will make for an interesting comparison given they were first released 40 years apart.

[Mottlemaster]

22 hours ago, Aardvark said:

Is there anything about Me-163S, Me-163D and Ju-248 / Me-263 in this album?

 

B.R.

Serge

Hi Serge . There is just a small section 0n the 263/ju248 developments running to just over a page .

,also a page on the Japanese development .

18 hours ago, PeterB said:

Lousy photo as I had to do a time exposure and must have wobbled a bit.

Apparently this is claimed to be the actual machine Brown flew "hot" in Germany before the engine was removed. It was in the museum at Cranfield College of Aeronautics when I visited in 1969, but in around 1975 it was moved out and is now at East Fortune in the Scottish National Museum of Flight - the info about Brown is from their website. I have absolutely no idea if the paintwork is original but it looks feasible to me - RLM81 mottle over RLM82 on the fuselage I suspect but maybe  over very weathered RLM 76 on the tail, comparing it with the presumably RLM76 unders - unless they are the supposed RLM84 if it existed. They seem to have completely repainted it since and the illustration on their website now looks wrong to me for what it is worth.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Thanks  Pete

I Agree with your thoughts on the paintwork  . Its a shame that the stencils are not clear . here is the article i found about the airframe flown at Wisley.

 

https://forum.largescalemodeller.com/topic/5535-british-rocket-–-captured-me-163-meng-132/

 

16 hours ago, Col. said:

A worthy subject choice Alistair. These two kits will make for an interesting comparison given they were first released 40 years apart.

Thanks Col  Just carried out a dry fit on the haegawa fuselage and wings . looks like a good fit of these parts so this one looks like it will be a quickish build .

[Aardvark]

1 hour ago, Mottlemaster said:

There is just a small section 0n the 263/ju248 developments running to just over a page .

,also a page on the Japanese development .

Thanks!  In general, nothing new, as I understand.

 

B.R.

Serge

[SafetyDad]

Slightly tongue-in-cheek, but given Eric Brown's compact stature (I was lucky enough to have met him at Telford some years ago) perhaps a 1/35 figure might be the best choice here?

 

Great idea for the build BTW and an excellent choice of markings. 

 

 

SD

[PeterB]

Hi MM,

 

According to Brown in his "Wings of the Luftwaffe", he managed to get in an flight on a powered Komet at an airfield in Germany before the "official" recovery of airframes began. He goes on to say that because of the danger of transporting the fuel, none was shipped to the UK so all of the ones taken to the UK could not  be fuelled and like the one in the link were only used as a glider. He does not say exactly which plane he flew "engine on" and there are no pics of it in the book, only the unpowered ones, so I cannot say whether or not the claim on the Scottish Museum of Flight website is correct, but I suspect it is as Brown visited it at least once, and would presumably have known as he kept detailed logbooks.

 

Pete

[Aardvark]

Something you confused me, I do not understand .... Eric Brown, he flew the Me-163 with the engine running or not?

 It's funny that the flights of the Soviet Me-163 did not take place because there was simply not so much hydrogen peroxide of this concentration throughout the country.

 

B.R.

Serge

[Col.]

4 hours ago, Aardvark said:

Something you confused me, I do not understand .... Eric Brown, he flew the Me-163 with the engine running or not?

 It's funny that the flights of the Soviet Me-163 did not take place because there was simply not so much hydrogen peroxide of this concentration throughout the country.

B.R.

Serge

Yes Serge he was indeed mad enough to take one for a 'live' flight.

[PeterB]

Hi Serge,

 

Brown says in his books, he tended to visit"enemy" airfields before the "official" delegation arrived, and several times managed to get in an "unofficial" flight, In this case he says in May 1945 he found a few Komets of II/JG400 grounded at Husum near the Danish border. After a visit to Kiel with a team of scientists, where he met Dr Walter who explained the engine. He then went to Bad Zwischenahn where there was a training unit, and went through an abbreviated training course involving 3 gliding flights. By this time a number of allied pilots had experienced accidents trying to fly the Komet and all RAF pilots were banned from attempting live flights, but as an RAE Test Pilot he was initially exempt. Expecting that to change and wanting to fly the machine he returned to Husum, and "unofficially" had a Komet tested and then fuelled up. He had a habit of picking a quite time when nobody was about when he was "bending the rules" so at 6.00am he took off and made a "hot flight" reaching over 33000ft and using up the fuel before gliding back to base. Subsequently a batch of Komets were shipped to the UK without fuel as I mentioned earlier and over the next couple of years he flew several times, but as a glider.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[Mottlemaster]

I coldn't wait to finish my Do 17z in the Med G/B  before starting these two ,so now the bench is coverd in the parts of three kits . lucky the 163's are small.

 

Both cockpits have been finished .

 

i removed the molded on seat belts from the Hasegawa kit and replaced with a set from a Trumpeter 262 . 

P1030554 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

Hasegawa kit on left .

 

P1030555 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

I have used some Airscale dials on both the haegawa and Meng instrument panels.

 

Decided to make up both motors for a comparison . More parts make up the Meng motor than the total parts for the hasegawa kit .

 

For difficlty of construction ans shooehorning lots of fiddly parts into a small space im going to give the Meng Motor 10/10

 

P1030556 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

meng on right

P1030557 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

P1030558 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

Nice dials but the artficial horizons are two large for the panels .

[Col.]

Tidy work on both 'pits  Even on a large scale those are a small space.

[Mottlemaster]

Now that my Classic Airframes Do17 z has been sighned off in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations (MTO) in WW2 GB III G/B i can divert my full attention back to the 163's .

 

Both meng and hesgawa rocket engines are completed and painted .

 

P1030576 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

Meng on right .

Considering the small number of parts of the hasegawa Engine its a good representation with some good detail . The meng one has more detail but i dont know if it was worth the time taken to make it .

 

The wings are ready to attach on the Meng . Wow have they put loads of thought into over complicating the construction . There must be dozens of ways that this could go horribly wrong .

P1030575 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

parts c 11 and C12 need to be attached with great care as they can distort the fuselage makeing wing  way out of line .

 

Tail whent together easily .

P1030579 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

This is all the meng kit . I should have done these two as seperate builds  ..

 

P1030578 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

 

The ammo has been painted as high explosive self idstruct  with steel shell caseings . I dont think brass was used for the 30 mm rounds .

 

P1030577 by Alistair Pearce, on Flickr

work bench prior to big wing attachment attempt tomorrow.

[Col.]

Good to see you returning on this project Alistair and nice progress. Although it sounds as if the older Hasegawa kit is working as a therapy build against the more modern but overly-complicated Meng kit for you.

[Mottlemaster]

20 hours ago, Col. said:

Good to see you returning on this project Alistair and nice progress. Although it sounds as if the older Hasegawa kit is working as a therapy build against the more modern but overly-complicated Meng kit for you.

You hit the nail on the head Col. The ironic thing is that i started the Meng 163 as therapy build against my Classic Airframes Do17.

Yesterday I got the wings attached and fuselage halfs joined so I can now feel the flow of endorphins kicking in .

I will spend some time bringing the Hasegawa kit up to same stage of construction.

[Greg Law]

Nice work Alistair.  I was thinking of doing one of my 1/48 Komets for this group build. It will be a good break from the Dornier. 

I finally got my new paint shop setup today and gave the Dornier it's firt coat of RLM71. The new paint shop is a big improvement over the old

Hairy farm garage. 

[Mottlemaster]

33 minutes ago, Greg Law said:

Nice work Alistair.  I was thinking of doing one of my 1/48 Komets for this group build. It will be a good break from the Dornier. 

I finally got my new paint shop setup today and gave the Dornier it's firt coat of RLM71. The new paint shop is a big improvement over the old

Hairy farm garage. 

Sounds good Greg . Has your new airbrush arrived yet . Can you keep the paint shop cool during your summer?  I find mine only has the Goldilocks temperature once in a blue moon .

If you do build avocet in 1/48 it won't take up much  shelf space 😉

[Greg Law]

Yes the Airbrush has been used today. In fact during my move I found two more Airbrushes I had forgotten about. 

The paint shop / laundry is on the south side of the building and on the lower level, so it won't get too hot. It never gets that cold here

so winter shouldn't be that much of an issue. 

I was thinking the same thing about the size. It will go nicely with my early jets.

[Greg Law]

Do you know what RLM colours were used on the Komets?

[John McNamara]

I also met Eric Brown at a lecture he did, either at the Yorkshire Air Museum of at Pudsey Civic hall in Leeds. Both were used for a series of absolutely amazing lectures. At the end of his lecture Eric asked for questions and I asked him which was the most dnagerous aircraft that he ever flew? He answered the Me163 Komet was by far the most dangerous. He went on to tell the story of his very unnoficial flight.  He still got a dressing down when his boss heard about the flight.  He spent a  lot of time talking to the aircrew that were still around as well as the groundcrew. Of course he spoke fluent German, having spent many of his schoolyears living there.

He signed my copy of his book for me which had been out only a short time, so I guess that dates the lecture. It was an amazing lecture and very insightful.

Good luck with the Komet build,

John

[PeterB]

Hi Greg,

 

Given the date I would think late RLM colours as on the Me 262. Various preserved examples appear to have RLM81/82 on the wings and to a lesser or greater extent also on the upper fuselage, whilst the undersides are RLM 76. Some fuselages are all over 76 with mottling, likewise the tail.

 

Pete

[Mottlemaster]

4 hours ago, PeterB said:

Hi Greg,

 

Given the date I would think late RLM colours as on the Me 262. Various preserved examples appear to have RLM81/82 on the wings and to a lesser or greater extent also on the upper fuselage, whilst the undersides are RLM 76. Some fuselages are all over 76 with mottling, likewise the tail.

 

Pete

I agree with Pete's assessment. There is a good chance that an all red example existed but I don't think there is any photographic evidence . No fuselage bands and only red ,yellow is on nose .

[Mottlemaster]

5 hours ago, John McNamara said:

I also met Eric Brown at a lecture he did, either at the Yorkshire Air Museum of at Pudsey Civic hall in Leeds. Both were used for a series of absolutely amazing lectures. At the end of his lecture Eric asked for questions and I asked him which was the most dnagerous aircraft that he ever flew? He answered the Me163 Komet was by far the most dangerous. He went on to tell the story of his very unnoficial flight.  He still got a dressing down when his boss heard about the flight.  He spent a  lot of time talking to the aircrew that were still around as well as the groundcrew. Of course he spoke fluent German, having spent many of his schoolyears living there.

He signed my copy of his book for me which had been out only a short time, so I guess that dates the lecture. It was an amazing lecture and very insightful.

Good luck with the Komet build,

John

Hi John

I to met Eric on his lecture tour at Yeovilton...wow for us aircraft modelers and any one with an intrest in flight it was an evening never to forget. I think Erics favourite aircraft was the Dehaveland Sea Hornet.

I cannot find a 1/32resin Eric to go with the komet.