ME-163 'KOMET'

The plane:

By the end of WW2, Germany was desperate. Huge fleets of allied bombers were devastating her industries and something had to be done to stop the tide. Various tactics and technologies were tried, most of which would have been rejected out of had earlier into the war. The ME-163 Komet was one such idea. Designed to climb rapidly to a height above the allied formations and the dive through taking as many bombers out as possible, the Komet was actually rocket powered for rapid take-off. The tiny plane was built without under carriage to save on weight - it took off from a jettisonable trolley and landed on a skid. They did their job well, but it was to little to late.

The Model:

I picked up a slightly beaten up Airfix kit of the Komet from eBay because I've always had a soft spot for the more insane German anti-bomber ideas of the late war period. A rocket propelled interceptor? With no landing gear? Somebody stop me!

The first thing you notice about the kit is how small it is. I mean ridiculously small. I knew the plane was small, but I wasn't quite prepared for how small it would be. Very, very small. It's about half the length of a MiG 15, and the cockpit is lower than the wing on my SAAB Tunnan. It's kind of like the aero equivalent of the SMART.

On a kit this small there is not much to go together, especially since mine was missing the two small rear windows. It took me all of three hours to build and paint this midget, assembly was quick and easy with no problems, and paint was a snap.

I'd decided I wanted to try out desert camouflage pattern on my next plane, and I could see no reason not to use in on the Komet. Okay, they never served in Africa but a man can dream, right? So I painted the upper fuselage and wing in Desert Yellow, and splotched olive drab blotches all over the place. Weathering was pastels and washes, and the decals went on very nicely, considering they are probably older than me.

I think I might pick up a few examples of the Hobby Boss version - they are cheap and I've heard good things about Hobby Boss's series of 1/72 fighters. I'll paint the others in different colors of course - I've always wanted to do a sort of SS fighter, kind of like a Nazi version of the Black Omega squadron from Babylon 5.