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HOBBY BOSS 1:72 HEINKEL HE-162A-2 SALAMANDER |
Reviewer:
Hrvoje Šafhauzer (contact via SMAKR webmaster)
Kit Review submitted: 26 September 2009
Kit Details:
Aircraft History:
By mid-1944, the RLM (German Air Ministry) aware of the situation and facing the possibility of total Allied air supremacy issued a requirement the for a low-cost single seat fighter that could be almost exclusively built in large numbers from non-strategic raw materials by semi-skilled workers and to be powered by a BMW 003A-1 jet engine. The fighter was intended to be disposable, and damaged or unserviceable machines were to be discarded and replaced by new ones. This gave a birth to the Heinkel He-162 A-2 Salamander/Volksjaeger which was one of the most unusual aircraft of World War II. In the extremely short time of 69 days Heinkel at Wien-Schwechat had designed the new fighter, built the prototypes and made a successful maiden flight. For minimizing a thrust losses engine was located in a pod perched above center wings, making maintenance easier too. How the pilots felt having the engine intake right behind a head was another story. The engine position also necessitated use of an ejectable pilot seat, and an upward-hinged clear canopy provided good view for a pilot. The fuselage was still built from a high percentage of aluminum components, but the wings were made from a single piece of wood, and that was to become the Achilles heel of the He 162, as the cold glue used was not of quality good enough. Same thing happened to Kurt Tank's German Mosquito TA-154. For keeping the weight down, intended armament was kept at only two fuselage-mounted 30 mm MK108 cannon, and no external stores were planned for all-wooden wings. However, these two cannon proved to be too much for relatively light built airframe and were supplanted with two superb fast-firing 20 mm MG 151/20s, and increasing the ammunition load to 120 rounds per gun from 50. Now He-162 lost bomber-destroying ability and it was intended to be dedicated air superiority fighter/interceptor.
Due to the Allied air supremacy of the production was split among a variety of different companies and assembly made in underground assembly shops that had been specially set up. Former gypsum and salt mines were mainly used, and under the circumstances of such decentralization among small and tiny companies – part of the wings and horizontal tail unit was built by joiners – it was possible to mass produce He-162s is numbers inconceivable today. First planes were sent in January 1945 to Erprobungskommando 162 (Test Unit) at Rechlin, with Oberstleutnant (Lt.Colonel) 220-victory ace Heintz Baer posted in command, for checking suitability in fighter role. From February to April 1945, 116 of these planes were built, most of which were delivered to Jagdgeschwader 1 “Oesau” for equipping its I and, according to some sources, II Gruppe.
Notorious fuel shortages in the final days of the war prevented the widespread use of the He-162, and number of the air combats and victory claims was low. While ostensibly intended to be flown by Hitler Youth member that just graduated from gliders, He-162 proved handful even for the remaining experienced pilots that were forced to trade their venerable FW-190s for the new mounts. Designers tried to remedy the handling problems by installing downward turned wingtips, but it improved situation slightly only. Today it is known that proper solution would be increasing wing positive dihedral, but at these times it could make production rate problems also. Some of the problems were also induced by slow acceleration and deceleration of the German early jet engines, low hours, and propensity to fuel leaks. While usual top speed was some 840 km/h, rising up to 905 km/h with engine emergency boost, giving a significant speed advantage over Allied piston engined fighters, range was limited to up to 620 km with internal fuel only. Captured samples were flight tested post war by both Soviet Union and Western Allies, with configuration never to appear again in service aircraft.The Kit:
I purchased this kit, together with some more Hobby Boss kits of the same class (read: affordable, small parts count, not highly on wanted list but interesting types not to be purchased by me if being from Hasegawa or like), while being on my latest (and unplanned) business trip to the Philippines. I have repacked it to a resalable PVC pouch to spare my luggage space and dismantling the box top, so the photo is showing the kit parts out of a packing tray. The parts survived airports' check-in luggage handling services just fine, being placed in a not so feeble Academy's 1/48 scale Bf-109 G-14 box. The kit is packed in typical Hobby Boss fashion, in a top opening box you with parts firmly hold within a tray. The box top is adorned with a He-162 A-2 from 1 Staffel JG 1 in flight and model brief data, while on the sides there are some small artworks of a same plane with photos of finished model and some basic historical data. Parts are arranged at a light gray sprue and an integral molded front and middle fuselage with cockpit and landing gear bays, a clear sprue with single piece cockpit canopy and reflector gunsight, and a sprue with a wing. Engraving is fine, and landing gear members are somewhat lacking in the smaller details. There is some flash on the wheel hubs, but it can be cleaned up easily, as well as the molding seams. The main gear and nose wheel doors are molded separately, so wheels-up and wheels-down are the only options offered with this kit. The cockpit is comprised of molded pilot's stick and seat, plus separately molded headrest – that is all. There is no instrument panel, or decal for it, although kit arrangement offers possibility for placing one. There is no pilot also, so if one is intending to make this model with wheels up one shall be sourced from spare bin. Some things are simplified or crude, and some things are missing.
Construction:
It actually started by downloading from internet and printing the Revell's instruction for their 1/32 scale He-162 A-2, for better interior detail painting and for obtaining references to use locally available Revell paints. If not stated otherwise during construction, Revell (R) paints and glue, both in tube and Contacta Liquid Professional with needle applicator, were used. Also I had laser-printed on A4-size transparent foil for overhead projectors some instrument panels that I considered applicable, and taken from my library of ones scanned from original decal sheets. Learning from previous experiences, this time I printed them in mirror (ie: back to front), so the foil would be on the dials outer surface. Initially I had intended to use either FW Flitzer or Me-262 panel, but after reading Revell instructions I found that the most similar instrument panel would be the angular-one for Ki-61. Luckily, I printed more of them in a tile fashion because I first tried to paint panel back with nitro-based aluminum bronze – DO NOT DO THIS because the nitro would sometimes eat away printed black ink, and sometimes not. White enamel paint as backing would surely yield better results, as I found out using it on a second set.
Following my usual practice, and after cleaning some flash and ejector stubs, I started with prepainting using my fine brushes. Aluminum bronze was used for engine pod interior surfaces and landing gear leg oleos (including a blunder with instrument panel back). For the engine intake ring interior and engine front with compressor blades I used Revell R91 steel. R45 light olive was applied for the RLM02-painted landing gear bays, landing gear legs, landing gear cover interiors, as well as over some stretched sprue intended to slightly beef up landing gears later. Complete cockpit interior was painted in Humbrol H92 iron gray for RLM 66, as well as the headrest, all wheel hubs, most of the clear gunsight surfaces, and cockpit upper rear bulkhead on a single wing&rear fuselage part. All was left to cure for two days, and painting continued using H21 gloss black for engine exhaust exterior and interior surfaces, guided by satin black indicated by Revell, and for wheel tires – I was to use matt clear at the end of work anyhow. Engine exhaust itself, as well as the MG151 barrels and lower fuselage front cannon port panels, were painted in H53 gunmetal. I applied R84 leather brown over, naturally, part of pilot headrest and pilot seat back cushion only, since Revell instructions indicated that seating parachute pack was used. Few hours later, and guided by Revell instructions, I hand-drew harnesses using R314 satin beige and sharpened tooth pick with buckles made by drops of aluminum bronze. Selected instrument panel was cut, trimmed, and glued into position. I decided, eventually, not to make rudder pedals, and only the pilot stick handgrip was painted using a black permanent soft tip pen.
© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009
Construction started few days later when I carefully removed molded-in barrels, using a tool provided kindly to me by Carlos (Thanks again!), and replaced them with slightly shorter ones having more realistic converging position. This was followed by assembling engine pod with intake and exhaust parts with the compressor blades, where glue is required since snap-tite was not completely good there. Knowing that I was to add lead in a space behind cockpit, I completely removed snap-tite slots in the wing&rear fuselage part. To reduce weight, I drilled real fuselage using power drill with slow-rev settings and several drills up to 8mm in diameter. I packed some lead in the first available space behind cockpit, and secured it with some plasticine. Dry test fitting showed that a small gap would appear at the joint with rear fuselage, but otherwise the mating was nice, so I liberally applied glue to this critical place. All was clamped with clothespins left to dry, followed by scraping the joins later. After that, the pilot headrest was glued in position, followed by assembling the tail surfaces, where the endplate fins and rudders were glued with liquid glue to horizontal tail in proper position and all was glued to tail some half an hour later. In this some sanding was required, but nothing to talk about.
Hrvoje Šafhauzer
© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009
When continuing next day, a slight thinning of the locating lugs was required for positioning both nose and main landing gears, an easy task and with a help of tweezers and liquid glue legs were positioned and left to cure. I decided to attach the main wheels later, so later I cut the retracting arms of the required lengths for the landing gear legs and placed them guided by the Revell instructions, and secured with little liquid glue. Landing gear bay covers followed, with slight thinning of the lugs required for main bays also. Ventral divider/cover of the main gear bays was placed also, and all left to cure again. In the meantime, I made two holes where the underfuselage antenna and backup sight would be placed. From the thinner stretched sprue length I cut lengths for the retracting levers for landing gear bay covers, and attached them with liquid glue.
The gunsight was secured in place using liquid glue again, and time came for attaching a single-piece cockpit canopy. Yielding from my experiences with Hobby Boss P-40M, and to prevent any cracking while pressing the canopy in position, I simply removed the locating lugs and trim remains for being level with canopy edges. This did the job, and I applied glue over cockpit edges and attached the canopy. I applied the liquid glue at a seat at dorsal fuselage and position engine pod. I thinned ring D/F antenna slightly with thin files and secured in position by liquid glue. New underfuselage antenna fashioned from stretched sprue followed, all to be concluded with backup mechanical sight in front of a curved windshield. When glue cured, both were trimmed to size observing the a/m Revell instructions. Complete assembling was performed in less than two days of work, and time came for painting.
© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009
Painting & Decaling:
I decided not to follow Hobby Boss painting instructions, but to combine kit decals for 1/JG 1, minus orange nose arrow which looked strange to me, with Revell instructions for another plane from the same Staffel. To commence, I touched up the landing gear bay details with R45, followed with painting the nose plywood cone in R5 white – color of the both 1st Staffel and I Gruppe. Naturally, two layers were required, the second one applied a few hours after. The Undersurfaces were painted in RLM 76 "Weissblau" using Revell-recommended mixture of R49 light blue (RLM 65) and R5, tinlet of which I had made for a previous project. I deliberately went high above future fuselage color demarcation lines to get some ground for proper marking. I made the rudder trim tabs red using permanent soft tip pen – I like easy solutions. Next to come was the engine pod, sans black exhaust panels, and tail surfaces and in RLM 81 "Wioletbraun". However, in spite of having several various Revell kits I still have to find two of them having same paint/paint mixture indicated for RLM 81, mostly being mixtures of various dark grays and carmine red. These particular instructions for 1/32 scale He-162 kit are stating that R46 NATO-olive shall be used. Guess what? I bought it, because I really do not fancy mixing Revell paints – their tinlets while easily opened by a knife blade tip, opposite from Humbrol ones, usually in my hands produce spilling during pouring into other container messing the working areas. So I brushed the indicated surfaces with R46 using a wider brush. And some time later, I touched up damaged/smeared undernose cannon barrels and surrounding panels with H 53 with fine brush.
© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009
When it all dried the next day, I drew color demarcation lines with a green pencil, and realizing it would be hard to paint it by free hand I used recently acquired Tamiya masking tape (Thanks again Carlos!) for both fuselage side and canopy frame. For RLM 82 I mixed R39 dark green (RLM 71) and R15 in Revell-indicated ratios – I was to need that color for many other Luft-1945 projects so I had to do it anyhow – and applied it with both fine pointed and wider brushes. Some half an hour later I stripped away masking tape before paint dried at its edges getting a decent straight line.
After having some trouble with Hobby Boss decals on matt surfaces (a lot of water is needed if one wants to move them around safely and without tearing) when correcting their positions, I gloss coated with an acrylic paint all the surfaces to receive the decals – fuselage, wings, and fins&rudders. Rest was left alone, giving me something to handle the model while glosscoating. I decided not to use kit decals for swastika, I would need it on some Bf-109 or FW-190 model, but used black ones printed at self adhesive paper and place them at fin positions. Next followed, in that sequence, fuselage crosses, "white 4" individual numbers, unit badges, underwing crosses, and finally overwing crosses. All completed in less than an hour. I waited for them to dry, cleaned the surfaces and applied a layer of R2 mat clear for sealing the decals. Model done.
© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009
Conclusions:
Like pointed out in his built review by Mark, it is a simple kit, quick and fun to build. In fact, I spent more time on painting than on actual assembling. Since I am not an accuracy buff, especially when it comes to the jets, I did not try to compare it with any reference material. For me, it looks what it is supposed to be. Anyhow, one review on another web states that this one has been designed with a Dragon kit as role model, so accuracy could be good enough. Recommended to beginners, and even to some who would like to add some details where missing.
Review courtesy of my valet, as usually.
Personal note: While at the Philippines I have found Hobby Boss kits to be some 4/5 of price for an Academy equivalent, at Belgrade, Serbia these are some 110% of Academy price. Obviously, shipping costs per weight are influencing that. Or greedy importers…
© Hrvoje Šafhauzer 2009
References:
© Hrvoje Šafhauzer2009
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