SMER 1:72 ME-262 B-1a/U1

 

Reviewer: Ray Bull  (raybull@hotmail.com)  (kit #: 0834)
Kit Review submitted:  November 1999

Aircraft:
The Me-262 "Schwalbe" (Swallow) made its first jet powered flight on July 18, 1942. By the eve of Stalingrad, the Luftwaffe had ordered just sixty of these new jet fighters. The Me-262B was a two seat development of the single seater A. By mid 1944, the first 262's were in service,with EK 262, thus becoming the first jet to attain service status and when the combat evaluation was over, Kommando Nowotny was formed in September. With Nowotny's death in November, JG7 and soon JV44 were formed. The Me-262 B-1a/U1's depicted in this kit served with Kommando Welter as night fighter defence for Berlin, with its Lichtenstein SN-2 radar.

Kit Parts:
A Heller reboxing, I've been told, there are about 53 injection moulded parts (one clear canopy) in this kit, on five sprues, including one clear. The parts are moulded in a light grey colour, with little flash, except on the sprues themselves. The raised panel lines are very faint, but a primer coat will bring them out. The wheels are very poor, with no tread detail, and the landing gear and bays are also rather crude.

Instructions:
The instructions came on a single sheet, folded in half to make a booklet. Brief history and technical information are given on the front cover in Czech and English, with it continuing in German over the page. This page also includes some tips on how to build and paint your model, along with symbol information. The whole kit is constructed on the third page, in 9 easy steps. Painting information is given on the next page, suggesting Humbrol colours or RLM numbers and there is a poorly detailed drawing for painting and decalling information. There is no painting information for individual parts, so the cockpit, interior of the engine intakes and outtakes along with landing gear bays and wheels, you will have to use your own information, which is not hard to come by. The instructions are easy to follow though.

Construction:
Building starts with the cockpit, which surprised me as being comparatively good for this price, as there was an instrument panel, with tiny dials that come up well with drybrushing. The seats are just L-shaped bits of plastic, with no belts moulded on. There is a control stick and the navigator's radar set?!?!, and all this fits well into the cockpit module, which also has some solitary dials moulded here and there. The inside of the fuselage has no detail though.

The landing gear and jet engines are also, along with optional drop tanks are constructed separately. The landing gear sorely lacks detail. 

The fuselage was placed together easily. The instructions call for you to include the front landing gear in this step, and there is no way around it. There is no front landing gear bay, just the expanse of the nose. There was no advice for any ballast in the nose. Maybe the radar is heavy enough, but I used Blu-Tak, just in case. Used to propeller aircraft, I didn't know how much to put in. There was a little gap along the nose seam and and the tail on my example had a comparatively large gap between the fuselage halves. Super glue fixed all this.

The bottom fuselage part was a little hard to slip into its place, but careful flexing of the part made sure it fit.

The four part wings come together ok. After gluing the bottom fuselage part to the main fuselage, the wings join onto this, and there are gaps everywhere, but nothing a little superglue won't fix. 

The engine nacelles were troublesome and required some forceful pushing into place and some careful trimming of the engine nacelle. There were gaps here too, but super glue fixed it once again to a tolerable standard. 

The landing gear is very basic, with no detail at all in any components. They fitted well, but look out of place in an otherwise fairly detailed kit. The front gear strut is one piece, while the main undercarriage is a two piece job. Very simple anyway. The landing gear doors have no detail.

The various aerials and masts were put on next. The pitot tube on the left wing looked too thick. The radar aerials are too thick.

The canopy, while thick, fitted ok, with tiny gaps in front of the join. I put this down to my just out of sync placement of the radio/radar operators box.

Note: Even though the instructions fail to mention ballast, put lots of it in. I discovered my little bit of Blu Tak did nothing to stop my aircraft from tail-sitting. In desperation, I ripped the drop tanks from the aircraft and opened them up and put solder in them. This did nothing and so I still have a tail sitter. So put lots of ballast in the nose of this one! ( In fact, any 262 or jet, since my Revell 262A does the same, due to lack of ballast)

Options:
There are no options such as an open cockpit, but one could build it with landing gear retracted, even though the instructions fail to mention this.

Versions:
There are two versions to reproduce. The one in the instructions is from Kommando Welter, painted in RLM 76, mottled/snake patterned with RLM 75. The one on the back of the box is an unknown type, with the upper fuselage in dark green and brown, with hellblau lower surfaces. I chose the Kommando Welter version. I have not seen any photos or detail drawings of it, but it fits my image of what a German night fighter looks like. Drop tanks are provided for the under nose pylons.

Decals:
The decals are Propagteam, and the decal sheet is very detailed, with many stencilled markings. They went on ok, but there was a little trouble getting some of the stencilling decals to go in the right spot. eg. The 'step' decals kept getting swallowed by the step- an actual step instead of the usual outline. I used up all my 'step' decals trying to get a decent result, but still ended up disappointed. But I guess this is more a flaw of mine than the kit, since there must be someone out there who can do that. As an alternative, try filling the 'steps' with filler, then decalling over it. Also, the decals like to fold over, and it is sometimes impossible to get it to fold back. They were the only problems I had with the decalling.

Accuracy:
It looks convincing, but the radar antennas and pitot tube are too thick . But with no research material, and just a knowledge of the aircraft, they still look too big.

Summary:
For something costing just $6 (Australian) it turned out nice. I remember dreading this kit after making the cockpit, as all the parts didn't look like they had much detail and it would be a long slog. But I was quite wrong. The kit was quite fun and easy to build, and the simple paint scheme was a breeze. I don't know how long it took, but it didn't take very long for a kit of this standard. At very cheap prices, this is a recommended kit, though quite basic. This kit in its original form is probably old, and it pretty good for that standard. All in all, a novice could put this together well. It reminded me of when I first started modelling- a simple, easy model, with little problems. For all you advanced people out there, consider it if you want a break from the hard stuff which taxes your brain. If you don't have much money and want a 262, buy it. But there are better Me-262 kits out there.

 

Note: the following related reviews links have not been updated since early 2000's - more kit reviews of this aircraft may now be on SMAKR, not reflected below.  Refer to the Index for other kits of this type.

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Photo Credit:  Unknown

An example of the two-seated Me-262B-1a night fighter - is that rust on the engine?