Men & Ladies,

You may be wondering why I called you here today? This is an EYES ONLY briefing about the status of my latest abomination.

Today I attached the wings after adding the front gunbay cover, and filling and sanding mis-fits.
There is a significant lip between the lower fuselage and the bottom wing leading edge. The wing has more curvature than does the fuselage.
Cliff


Otherwise, the fuselage-wing fits are all very good and tight. There is a obvious gap along the wingroot, but looks like minor gap-filling superglue or even a healthy does of liquid glue may preclude any filling/sanding; I tried both.
Filled Root, super glue

Filled root, super glue

Unfilled Root

Bottom rear wing to fuselage

Gear well


That reminds me, the sides of the jet nacelle's intake are too wide:
Nacelle


I have also retro-added cross-links to my other Trumpeter ME-262 posts:

Trumpeter ME-262 Painting

Bad Fittings

Trumpy Me-262 Progress--Nose & Fit

Trumpeter Me-262 Progress

Trumpeter Me-262 Stalled

Trumpeter Me-262 Warped Wing

Trumpeter ME-262 Guns, Cockpit, Engines

Trumpeter ME-262 Gun bay

Trumpeter ME-262 with In-box Review

As I archive this build, I will supply hotlinks to the build's other posts.

Stay tuned

Hi Fred

It's certainly moving on now! - and I'm glad you must have got your warped wings sorted. I was worried that the wing/fuselage joint seemed a little loose when I did the in-box review so, in fact, yours looks pretty good to me.

All the best

Rowan

Hi Rowan,

The upper wing to wingroot fit is a little interesting. Notice the hole at the fuselage wingroot structure, and the protruberance on the top wing's wingroot? These interlock and help hold the wing to the fuselage. You have to gingerly bend the wing away while mating the assembles, but produce a solid fit.

I noticed I need a little more filler along the superglued gap, and a lot on the other side that I tried with just liquid glue (Tamiya Extra-thin).

Last night I applied a dollop of Tamiya putty tp the fuselage plate ahead of the leading edge. Another dose is required. All that nice screw (yes, screws, not rivets) detail will be lost. On the subject, because these panels were screwed on (intended to be frequently removed? What are they for?) I am NOT going to meticuosly fill the gaps as I will on riveted panels.

A recent thread mused if the slave labor used by the Nazis at this stage were used on the -262, but Merlin's walk-around link writes about the high level of virtually seamless/panel lineless finish of virtually all ME-262s (even without the putty Messerschmitt used to smooth seams). Thus, Trump's beautiful rivet detail should be painted into oblivion, but not by your's truly--I like it!

However, this means I will not loose sleep over some of it disappearing under the putty and sanders.

More ASAP

Fred,

Good job on your Me 262 and thanks for pointing out the problem areas on that kit.

A few days ago I was looking through my Me 262 books from Classic for information on ''yellow 3'' the 262 I plan to do when I build the Tumpeter kit and I noticed a few pictures of the 262s that had some areas that showed some poor fitting parts and rough looking exterior on them.
I read about some of the problems the Germans had in producing the Me 262 and in one instance there was a shortage of wings caused by the poor physical condition of the forced laborers, they were so weak from lack of food they could barely work. The German who reported the poor treatment of those forced laborers to his supervisor got into trouble and he was told he could never step foot onto that work site again.

So slave labor was used to build the Me 262 and probably other German a/c, there were many different places where Me 262 parts were being built and the quality of those parts would vary depending on where and who built them. Some 262s were well built to factory specs while others could barely be assembled because of poor quality of the tails, wings, or fuselage.
The Me 262 ''black X'' in Austraila is a good example of an Me 262 that had some mis-matched parts when it was built.

Matrixone

Hi there

K.A. Merricks "Luftwaffe Camouflage & Markings 1933-1945" contains some really surprising evidence about the poor state of manufacturing quality and the use of recycled parts at the War's end. There are some real horror stories, such as the '262 with a totally mismatched and crooked tail that was faired in with fiiler! That must have been "interesting" to fly at over 500mph!

All the best

Rowan

Rowan,

It is amazing that the Germans were able to manufacture ANY aircraft at all the last year of the war, most if not all a/c factories were bombed out by 1945. To design, produce, and fly jet aircraft under those conditions is inspiring, but it is very sad that forced labor was needed for mass production of the Me 262, He 162, and the jet engines for those aircraft.

The German pilots were very brave to fly those early jets into combat, a large number of Me 262s were lost to accidents caused by engine flameouts or nose gear failures, quality control was a real problem for the Germans in 1945 but it saved the lives of a number of Allied airmen who did not have to face as many jets in combat as they might have.

Matrixone

Hi Les, Merlin,

Thank you for this. I feel better now if I can not perfectly blend the step between the leading edge of the bottom wing and the fuselage.