I realise this subject is not the most popular on site, but if you could spare a little time to think it over, I may just give you enough reasons to look upon it with new eyes.
Background.
Aircraft design has always attracted me and when I first saw what the German’s had on the drawing board I was hooked.
If you wander through Dan Johnson’s Luft 46 site you will recognise many ideas and concepts that are familiar today. The influences on modern aircraft are immense.
The Reasons.
These secret project ideas and concepts offer, in my view at least, a valid part of aviation history that allows the modeller to do something different and unusual. True; many of the concepts were way ahead of their time and had to sit and wait for technology to catch up or develop to make them viable. In fact NASA have experimented with for example, the forward swept wing theory first employed by the Germans, in recent years and it worked.
The German designers covered virtually anything you could think of, from the extremely workable to the completely whacky. Ideas included flying wings, asymmetrics, single, twin and multi engine applications, the use of prop, turbo-prop, jet, rocket and scram engines, swing wing, forward swept wings and even stealth to just scratch the surface.
In many ways it allows the modeller much more freedom to create something out of the ordinary.
This not to say the skills or standards employed should be any less than any other type of modelling. In fact the trick is to make any kit look, when finished, as though it actually existed.
There are a number of ways to give an aircraft a look of authenticity. Colours should be akin to those in use by the Luftwaffe. For those who are tempted but demand accuracy, for example: you could pick your favourite Ace and examine his group/unit and the last aircraft he flew, then when the theatre, type and the role are determined, you could then select what may have been a logical replacement.
Also Luft 46 is not totally dedicated to German stuff, all aircraft of this "type" from all the Nations involved in WW2 are just as much a part.
Food for thought.
Thanks for listening and your comments are always welcome.
Cheers
Peter
