¹⁄35

First Jets

Construction

The cockpit

As usual, I first started with the cockpits (picture 3). And here, the Condor kit is definitely the best, being far more detailed (thanks to the PE parts) than the Special Hobby one. In fact, the Pioneer's cockpit looks like an empty bathtub, while the He 178 one looks more realistically busy. Even worse, the instrument panel of the British plane is a joke! Some instruments are literally cut on the borders and I guess the guys at Special Hobby simply made a dummy and trimmed it to fit in the cockpit, not very serious. Talking about fitting, the completed cockpit of the Heinkel does not fit in the two fuselage halves. So sanding and dry fitting is needed here to achieve a good result. On the contrary, the cockpit of the Pioneer goes in the two fuselage halves without much effort. But the complexity of its design will give you some problems! The front wheel bay is part of the cockpit assembly and achieving a good fit of the whole thing in the fuselage will be tricky! It would have been better to separate the cockpit and the wheel bay to have more "room" to work with! Special Hobby wanted to make a design "à la Tamigawa" and this will cause some troubles later.

The Cockpit of the German plane was painted in dark grey (I used only Tamiya Acrylics unless otherwise noted) with some light grey drybrushing. A real plus is the PE levers, pedals and seatbelts. The levers received a drop of white glue on their heads and were painted dark grey with some white and red. The seatbelts where painted brown and silver and the pedals were glued in place after some dry fitting (remember the cockpit is narrow!) In all, the only minus of the Condor kit in that area is the joystick, which looks more like a club. Looking at the Special Hobby's Pioneer cockpit, I think it would have been perfect for a Tibetan monk but not for a test pilot. There is only a stick and a rudder pedal for the poor guy! I wonder what all the indicators on the instrument panel are for? The painting is therefore easy, with only a light green base and some drybrushing (picture 4).

At this time of the build (picture 5), I must say the Condor kit made a better impression on me than the Special Hobby one. This was confirmed while gluing the two fuselage halves together. On the He 178 kit, once the cockpit floor and bulkhead are properly sanded, there is no problem. Gluing the two fuselage parts of the Pioneer is far more difficult due to the cockpit's design! It’s very hard to achieve a good result here. If the gear door is in place, the cockpit is not and if the cockpit is in place, the gear door is offset. I decided the gear door would have priority and had to fill the resulting gap behind the pilot's seat (picture 6). Don't forget to add some weight in the nose of the Pioneer (picture 7). If you don't... well, you now what will happen. The instructions indicate that you will require 30g of weight in the nose. I only used 20g and it was more than enough! Anyway, there is not enough space for more.