Some great progress guys!

Tom: Welcome to aeroscale and a fantastic choice for your first campaign build. Looking forward to seeing it completed.

Jesper: Nice splinter scheme. Maybe not many pilots would make it back in one of those, but imagine how dizzy enemy pilots could get just looking at it!

Thanks Mike, Mike, and Yalým - for the comments and welcome to Aeroscale.

Progress has been slow...I have a 2 month old son and there is no sleep schedule yet.

The He280 kit nose gear bay is very plain - just a featureless slab of plastic. Here's a shot of the WIP, dressing it up with card and wire:

Then, after painting in RLM 02, oil wash, and some drybrushing:

That's much better! You can also see some work on the engine components in the background. The washes look a bit heavy, but without overkill will likely be invisible once assembled.

I also started taking a look at the main wheel wells. They, too, are featureless pits molded integrally with the lower wing. They are completely boxed in, which doesn't look very good. So, rather than doing something really productive like going ahead and building the kit I cut off the wheel wells and will scratch build something with more relief and detail. The wells should really be open into the fuselage, although the kit is correct in posing the fuselage doors closed as this looks to be the case whenever the aircraft was on the ground. You can see the work I have cut out for me:

I'll be building new bays set back from the opening and in line with panel lines, with an opening into the fuselage. Will it be visible? Who knows!

Regards-

Hey guys

I'm a bit late to the party but at last I've finally gotten started. There is really some great projects going on in this campaign so far and I'm almost embarrassed to enter my kit at all.
I decided to go with the He162-A2 Salamander from Tamiya in 1/48 because that's all I had in my stash. So far the fit has been great and I haven't run into any problems. Anyway, here is a pic of the box art and a progress shot.





I haven't decided on which decal option to go with yet but all the offerings are pretty cool.
Hope to have another update in a few days.

Hermon

And a little update. Paint is on and the first coat of Future is drying. Decals are next and then all the little bitty parts.




Hermon

Hi Hermon,

Looking good so far. I'm almost finished the HobbyBoss 1/72 kit myself, but yours is shaping up to be something special

All the best,

Mike.

Hi Mike

Nice work all round! And, just to say, I haven't forgotten the Luft '46 build! My upheaval over the summer has mucked things up big time, but I'll get the French campaign out of the way and then pile in with my '46 entry. It'll be a rush job and it'll be a Flitzer - not least because I know just where the kit is in the mountain of packing cases that is threatening to burst Castle Aeroscale on the Isle of Wight!

All the best

Rowan

Thanks Mike. So far this has been a great little kit and has went together with no fuss.

A bit more progress today. Got some decals layed on and managed not to screw them up. The weather here is starting to turn bad so with any luck I should have a few hours after work this week to tidy this one up.




Hermon

That Heinkel Salamander is looking sharp. I hear it was a tough bird to fly. Russell

Well, here is my completed entry. This was a fast build and was alot of fun. The only problem I encountered at all was that my Model Masters acrylic paint refused to stick to the plastic for some reason which caused many a touch up. Anyway, here she is.









That's all. Sorry about the lighting on the pic's. The weather isn't good enough right now for outside shots. And thanks Mike for this great campaign.

Hermon

Great build, Hermon. An attractive bird with a interesting story despite the very limited active use. Great fit for the campaign

I have now finished my Triebvogel after great delays. I have included it in a diorama with Mistel combination I build some time ago. Sort of a Luftwaffe airfield Summer 1945 with point defence of Triebvogel while the mistel is readied for a mission.

Thanks for an interesting campaign

Herman your He-162 looks fabulous! I would like to build one in 1/72 scale.

Jesper, your diorama is great as well. It really looks neat with the Heinkel and the Triebvogel together! I like it a lot! Russell

Thanks for the comment, Russell. Appreciate it

I would like to make the airfield look a little more "worn" and less neat. especially since this should have been after 6-7 years of constant conflict. Fx. Overgrown grass, cracked concrete plates and the like. Well, next time.

Fantastic diorama Jesper. It all came together very well.

Big thumbs for the Salamander as well Hermon, it's a real beauty.

Rowan, I'm well behind schedule too on my Me 1101 so don't despair

All the best, Mike.

Hi there guys, sorry ofr ignoring my duties as a campaignee for a while but we had some health problems in the family. Anyways we had the local anual modeling competition in the Air Force Museum in Istanbul last weekend and I participated with both my initial campaigne warm up model the B.V.194 and my campaigne entry Messerschmitt P.1111 which I finaly menaged to finish. I won the 3rd prize with the B.V.194 in small scale world aviation branch. I will upload my completed P.1111 photoes as soon as possible. Have fun, Model on!!!! ehehehe....

Hi there

After being nagged earlier that I'm taking too long to get back to my Halberstadt, there seems only one logical thing to do... start my Flitzer!



I've dug the bits out of the debris of my move to the Isle of Wight. It all seems to be intact, so I'll get stuck in ovet the next few days.

All the best

Rowan

Hi again

The interior is painted, but I'm not going to mess about with pics - it's all just gizmology to fill a hole! My target for this weekend is to get the basic airframe joined up - the fun will be a Luft '46 paint-job.

All the best

Rowan

Hi again

Well, I cracked on a bit today:



The wings needed more filler than I'd hoped at the roots. Two reasons: the dihedral (as set) seems a bit excessive, and the airfoil of the wings and the roots doesn't match very well.

I'm trying out some car-repair putty that I spotted in Halford the other week:



It's working well. Tested on styrene, there's a clear bead around the edge where the solvent has eaten into the plastic, so it should stick like you-know-what to the proverbial blanket. And on a resin kit you can use a cotton bud dipped in cellulose thinners to quickly clean it off and blend it without fear of harming the surface.

All the best

Rowan

Hi again

Well, I'm breathing something of a sigh of relief, because I've got past the "make or break" stage of the build OK - the tail-booms are on and they line up properly!





I was really prepared for trouble after the slightly "iffy" fit of the wings, but it was surprisingly straightforward, so I'll tempt Fate and say I think I'm on course to finish this week.

So, colour schemes? It's Luft '46, and I'm leaning towards a desert scheme as part of a German thrust down through the Caucasus to seize the Persian oil fields.

All the best

Rowan

Here I´m going to detail the navigation lights,

Here you can see the pitot tuve,

Hi all again. Took some time but I finaly menaged to fix the antenna and picture my PM 1/72 Messerschmitt P.1111.:



Cheeeers.

Hi Yalým

Beautiful job on the camouflage! Really nice!

All the best

Rowan

Hi again

Just a quick update to show I haven't ground to a total stop! I used my little Flitzer as guinea-pig as a part of the airbrushing tests today with the Iwata TR-O very kindly supplied for Review by The Airbrush Company Ltd.:



It's stunning! - the TR-O, not the Flitzer!

All the best

Rowan

WHATTA???? How did you menage to draw straight lines with the airbrush???? Please don't tell me it's skill, please please don't.....
Thanks for the kind comments by the way. Hmmm I realized that while I was shooting the photoes the pitot tube is not present where it should have been. I can swear it was there before the shoot....blimey!!!!

Wow Yalym, what a great looking model! Good work! Russell