Focke-Wulff "Flitzer"

The Plane:

The FW Flitzer was a german secret jet fighter project during World War Two which had progressed as far as various wind tunnel mock-ups before being cancelled in favor of the ME-262. The Flitzer was equipped with a single jet engine as opposed to the Meschershmidt's two, and carried a hefty arsenal of 20mm cannons.

Although outwardly similar to the DeHavilland Vampire both companies were ignorant of the work of the other until after the war.

The Model:

Revell of Germany issued a 1/72 scale model of the Flitzer in 1996. The kit was well engineered and designed, attractively boxed and affordably priced. All of this escaped my notice until I found one on eBay. Being a long time fan of the Flitzer, the Vampire and Luft '46 in general, I bought it.

The kit went together very easily and smoothly. The fit and finish of the parts was very nice, and through careful planning none of the ejector pin marks were visible. I had a breeze just gluing it together and following the instructions.

One are which got confusing was the landing gear. The instructions were a bit unclear about how it went together so I improvised and left some parts which had me totally baffled out.

Painting was also easy, although this is actually my first completed plane kit so I don't have the right RLM colours. I used citadel Codex grey and Tamiya German Grey (for tanks) as they were close to the right colours. To replicate the transition between dark and light grey I stippled on Tamiya German Grey. This was a touch tricky as Tamiya paint dries so fast! I had to do two coats to get it looking right.

I weathered the model with a combination of dry brushes, washes and pastels and stippled some metallics on to replicate paint chipping.

I had an absolute blast building this kit. It's simple, practically falls together and builds into a nice replica of a unique subject. I'll defiantly be looking for more Revell AG Luft '46 kits in future - and I'd rather like to do two more versions of this one - one in North African paint and the other painted up in SS black, kind of like a Nazi version of the Psi Corps black omega starfuries in Babylon 5.