Airfix Messerschmitt Me.262A-1a/2a (A03090A) 1:72

[Mike]

Messerschmitt Me.262A-1a/2a (A03090A)

1:72 Airfix

 

 

The shark-like profile of the Messerschmitt Me.262 Schwalbe and its almost matchless abilities at the time have given it a high profile despite its lack of practical effect on the outcome of WWII.  If Der Fuhrer had been a little less prone to meddling however, the effect of its presence may have been felt more by the bomber streams than it was.  That's if they could have solved the metallurgy of the engines to obtain sufficient flight time before they needed a total rebuild to prevent possible catastrophic failure.  That's a lot of ifs, but if we concentrate on the actual performance of it, it's still an impressive aircraft of the day that was superior to the British Meteor in many respects, using axial flow jet engines and swept outer wing panels together with an efficient aerodynamic shape.  It first flew with a prop in the nose and dummy engines, dragging its tail along the ground until airborne, but this was changed to tricycle gear once the engines were live as the thrust from both engines would have incinerated their landing strips.

 

The delays were caused partly by Hitler's insistence that the airframe should also be able to carry bombs, which it eventually could on pylons under its nose, but as usual their efforts were spread too thin by trying to make the Schwalbe a workhorse suitable for many roles, all of which took valuable engineers and strategic materials away from the existing fighters that were to be the most use in defence of the Reich.  The huge speed differential between the 262 and its bomber stream targets meant that zoom attacks were necessary that gave precious little time for the pilot to take aim due to the high rate of closure.  The aircraft were also vulnerable during take-off and landing due to the slow spooling-up of early jet engines, which the Allies took full advantage of to reduce the fleet by attacks on their airfields at crucial moments that took more scarce piston-engined fighters away from other duties to protect them, with intensive maintenance whittling away at the available airframes even further.  It was a case of too little too late in terms of numbers and even with their speed advantage a few were shot down by piston-engined Allied aircraft, due in part to the extensive experience that the Allied crews had gained during the invasion and the comparative lack of experienced German pilots by that stage of the war.  As the Allies rolled through Germany they captured airbases and research establishments with many potential variants that didn't see combat and other design schematics hoovered up by US Operation Paperclip and similar operations by the other Allied governments.

 

 

The Kit

This is a reboxing with new decals of a 2017 tooling from Airfix, and it arrives in a red-themed box that has a painting of a 262 having just downed a B-24, with more potential victims in the background.  Inside are four sprues of the new darker grey styrene, a sprue of clear parts, decal sheet and the instructions that are printed in greyscale with spot colour and full colour profiles on the rear pages for the decal options.  Detail is good, with raised and recessed features across the sprues, and engraved panel lines on the skin of the aircraft.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the cockpit tub, which has a bulkhead installed at the rear to accommodate the seat, and a floor insert that holds the rudder pedals.  The control column is slotted into a hole in the tub, then the two side consoles are applied to ridges along the sides, adding the top to the tub after installing the instrument panel and decal in a slot near the front.  An optional pilot is included on the sprues for you to use if you wish.  The full-span lower wing has some flashed-over holes drilled out if you are using the supplied rocket packs, adding a short spar in front of the gear bay openings, and a bulkhead behind on slots in the interior.  There are three sockets on the bulkhead front that allows you to plug the cockpit tub in, resting the forward end on the spar, and remembering to drill out the two holes in the centre section of the wing if you are using the stand that Airfix sell separately.  The fuselage halves are painted where the cockpit will sit, and a bulkhead is inserted at the front, then the lower wing and cockpit assembly are inserted from below, fitting the nose gear bay under the front, and the upper wing halves at the same time.  If you plan on using the bombs under the nose, you will need to drill out holes either side of the gear bay before inserting it.  The instructions also suggest you add 5 grams of nose weight to prevent a tail-sitter before you close things up.  The addition of the slot-in elevators perpendicular to the fin and rudder complete work on the fuselage for now.

 

The two Jumo engines and their cowlings are built up in mirror image, creating the exhaust bullet with a depiction of the rear of the engine, which is trapped between the main cowling halves, and has the intake lip and bullet inserted into the front, which advises that the intake bullets should be painted the same colour as the exterior of your model.  They are inserted into the recesses in the lower wings, and it’s impossible to put the wrong engine in position unless you’re very persistent and quite destructive.  For the in-flight option all three bays are covered by bay doors, the main gear bays made from just one part for your ease.  For the gear-down option, Installation of the landing gear begins with the nose, adding the front door at an angle along with the strut and retraction jack, followed by the wheel and sideways opening rear door.  The main gear bays have the outer captive doors inserted first, fitting the struts and retractors, then the two inner bay doors as a single part.  The main wheels have separate hubs, and thanks to clever use of keyed parts, the flat spot on the tyres will be correctly oriented once complete.  A pair of scrap diagrams show how the wheels and bay doors look from the sides and in close-up.

 

You have a choice of a pack of unguided rockets on separate palettes under each wing that use three holes drilled earlier to hold them in place, or a pair of two-part bombs on thick pylons under the nose, with an antenna under the starboard wing root for both.  Turning the model over onto its wheels, the canopy is installed using three parts, starting with the windscreen that has part of the fuselage moulded-in for your ease, the fixed rear portion, and the canopy, which can be posed open or closed as you wish, and if open you could add a short length of wire to represent the stay wire.  The last parts are a D/F loop on the spine and a pitot probe near the tip of the port wing.

 

 

Markings

There are two decal options on the sheet from aircraft at the bitter end of the war that are wearing very different schemes.  From the box you can build one of the following:

 

• W.Nr.110956 White 17 flown by Obstlt. Heinz Bär, III./Ergänzungs-Jagdgeschwader 2, Lechfeld, Bavaria, Germany, 29th April 1945
• W.Nr.500200 flown by Fj.Ofw. Hans Frölich, 2./Kampfgeschwader 51, Fassberg, Lower Saxony, Germany, 8th May 1945

 

 

 

Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.  The stencils included on the sheet are dealt with on a separate page that is line-drawn for clarity, also showing the decals on the insides of the engine nacelles.

 

 

Conclusion

This is a detailed little model of one of my favourite WWII jets, having most of the same details as the larger kits I usually build.  The decal options are attractive, and if you are mottle-phobic one option has almost none other than some clouding on the tail, and a soft-edged demarcation along the fuselage.

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

 

[alt-92]

W.Nr.500200 being the captured 262 currently at AWM, nice historic touch to select that one...

 

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C111055

[Paul Alan Bardell]

 

 

Nice review,

 

I like the box art,

 

Question - does this mean Airfix will be announcing a new B24 later in the year? 

 

I seem to remember that the old 262 box had the aircraft shooting down B17 - Skyway Chariot of the 100th Bomb group - one of the marking options of the B17 kit of a few years ago.

 

Fingers crossed for a new B24.

 

Come on Airfix, you know you want to.

 

 

B R