Fliegerhorst Resin

1/48 Bv-215 Nachtjäger model kit

Product # 48002 for MSRP $120.00

Product Article by Matt Swan in 2004

 

 

Developmental Background
       In January of 1944 the Technical Air Armaments board (Technische Luftrüstung) issued a specification for a definitive night fighter with a top speed of 559 mph and four hours of flight time. For this particular day and age these requirements were extreme to say the least. Dr. Richard Vogt was already developing the radically designed Bv-212 fighter/interceptor for the “Emergency Fighter Program” and immediately looked to this design to meet the requirements of the new specification.
       The Bv-215 was essentially an enlarged Bv-212; it had slightly less wing sweep at 30 degrees compared to the 40-degree sweep on the 212 and a slight 6-degree dihedral with anhedral wingtip control surfaces. The 215 was designed around a tubular steel frame with a wet wing containing nearly 7800 liters of fuel. The fuel was fed through a spiral plumbing system wrapped around the engines intended to preheat the fuel before being introduced to the combustion chamber. The single rear mounted Heinkel He S 011 axial flow turbojet engine seen on the 212 was replaced with a pair of tandem mounted He S 011 engines fed through a nose intake. Warm air from the engine compartment was circulated through the wings leading edges to act as a deicing system.
       The pressurized cockpit held a three-man crew; a pilot, radar operator and navigator/radio man, and all three were provided with ejection seats. Several different offensive weapons systems were designed to fit in the nose such as combinations of Mk 108 and Mk 213 30mm cannons or Mk 112 55mm cannons or internally stored R4M Rockets. Defensive armament consisted of a FHL 151 remote controlled rear-facing turret armed with either one or two MG 151/20 20mm cannons. Also housed internally were options for several different radar systems. This aircraft could use the FuG 244, 280 or 350 Search Radar, a Ground-to-Air Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system as well as a Ground/Air Radio homing device and a bad weather radio landing aid. A review of all the proposed navigation and search electronics reads very similar to what would be expected in a contemporary jet fighter.
       In the end none of this made it off the drawing board. At war’s end only three prototypes of the single engine Bv-212 were under fabrication and the Bv-215 was still a dream for the Luftwaffe.

The Kit
        Before we get into the model lets take a look at Fliegerhorst and Eric Kappner. Fliegerhorst translates directly as ‘Air Base’, which seems an appropriate name for this model company. Eric Kappner is the driving force behind the model and the company. A pattern maker by profession and an avid aircraft modeler Eric has the good fortune to be able to combine his professional and leisure talents. Still somewhat new into the model production game, the Bv-215 is just his second production piece. Considering the skill and craftsmanship displayed on this model, I am looking forward to seeing his third (Bv-155) and forth ((Bv-208.3). There is even more good stuff to look forward to as the next planned release from Fliegerhorst Models will be the De Havilland Comet Mk-1 with decals!

        This kit arrives in a light duty cardboard box of apparent recycled material with a photocopied pen and ink drawing of a Bv-215 in a forest setting. The contents inside the box are well packaged with parts being grouped in small zip-lock bags and the entire contents layered with bubble wrap. Considering that this has been manufactured and packaged in Germany, shipped to the East Coast of the United States, uncrated then repacked for shipment to me here in Ohio I was pleased to see that no part of the kit suffered damage from transit. Also included in the box are a good quality printing of the instructions – all in German, and a flier from DMC Models, the U.S. distributor of the kits.
        The first bag of parts I looked into contain all the flying control surfaces. Bags containing the landing gear and gear doors, the flaps, the cockpit and canopy follow this. In the bottom of the box rests the two solid cast fuselage sections and the single piece main wing. The flaps include pieces for flaps up or flaps down and neither these nor the pieces covering the flying control surfaces have any panel lines but are simply smooth cast and allow full range of positioning. All of these pieces as well as the main wing are cast with the leading edges up. The results of this is that we have very nice trailing edges with no bubbles the leading edge has the remains of the pore stubs and a small collection of bubbles that will have to be filled. The main wing has good dihedral, no obvious warpage and very lightly engraved panel lines but these seem to have been slightly obscured during the casting process due to a heavy coating of mold release agent. All of the panel lines will need to be rescribed and could be elaborated with a few additional lines. I don’t know what kind of mold release agent was used but even a good bath in warm soapy water did little or nothing to remove it. Ultimately, I removed it with a paper towel and small amounts of lighter fluid. Fortunately this is the only piece that suffers from the monster mold release.

        The fuselage of the aircraft comes as a solid cast nose section with better engraved panel lines and no noticeable release agent. This piece encompasses the cockpit tub, nose gear bay, two detailed electronics bays and two of the three forward gun bays open and detailed. This piece was cast nose down and the resin quality around the deeply hollowed intake is excellent. This piece ends at the engine compartment with half of the rear gear bays and a large alignment stud. The rear section piece has a large area hollowed out which indicated to me there was a real attempt to keep the model from being a tail sitter. Exhaust cones are molded in for the S-011 engines and, like the wings, was cast with the tail down so the quality level is very good around them.

Click on image below to see larger image

These two large pieces mate with very little work required and leaves a very fine seam. Unfortunately the front surfaces of the landing gear bays trapped lots of air bubbles that really are not visible until some primer hits them.
        The landing gear are cast around heavy 412 wire that should support the model without difficulty. The resin struts and retraction arms display nice levels of detail but also have the worst flash of any of the parts in the kit. Even at it’s worst this flash will present little problem and cleans off easily. All three of the wheels managed to collect air bubbles so some fill work is required here. The gear doors all look good and have some descent interior detail.

        The last bag holds am unusual item of interest. Before we get to that, lets talk about the other pieces here for the cockpit. The ejection seats are well done but have no seat belts. The radio operator’s seat looks good and has no seatbelt detail either. This is probably a good thing because with a kit like this you’d probably want to add some scratch built or PE belts anyway. The hooded dash and the radio bay are adequately detailed and don’t seem to have any bubble damage. Included in this bag are two vacuform canopies featuring soft frame lines and mediocre clarity, a coat of Future will probably help on that score. What so interesting in this bag though is the master for the canopy. I see two possible uses for this piece; I could use it to attempt to vacuform a better-defined canopy or use it as a master for cutting paint masks or both. There are plenty of fine air bubbles in the master but this shouldn’t present any problems in using the part.

        The main parts of the kit seem to fit well together other than the parts for the flaps in the up position. It looks like some shims may be needed for that option. All together the kit contains forty-four parts cast in light tan or nearly white resin including the wire reinforced struts, 2 vacuform canopies and a single canopy master for 47 total pieces in the box.

Click on images below to see larger images

The pictures above show the parts as they are grouped in their bags

Decals and Instructions
        The decals are easy in this kit – there are none. This leaves you with wide-open options to raid the spares box, buy aftermarket Night Fighter sets and adapt them to the kit or paint your own.

        The instructions begin with a full page of information on the aircraft along with some general painting guidelines but this is all in German only. Following this are three pages containing exploded view assembly instructions. The instructions indicate the front fuselage section as being of three pieces with a vacant bay for the top front machine guns and an air inlet canal that travels through the entire front section. I can only imagine that this may have caused the model to be a tail sitter and casting it as a single piece may have resolved the issue – that’s only a guess mind you. These exploded views cover all the basic pieces included with the kit. There are no specific color codes or call-out for the interior details. There are also no suggestions for potential aircraft markings.

Conclusions
        A few things are lacking in the interior detail department here. It is up to the modeler to scratch or scrounge things like the control column, rudder pedals, small control levers and any other details needed to complete the front office. The general fit of the parts is good and other than the air bubble issue the parts are of good quality. The lack of decals is nothing more than an inconvenience and maybe even a blessing prompting the modeler to exert his or her creativity. A few recesses in the interior pieces contained small bits of the molds making me wonder just how many units can be produced before a mold reaches the end of it’s usefulness. With nothing else to compare to, this may just look like another version of the Bv-212 that has been on the market for a few years now but it definitely is something different. The picture below shows the main wing and fuselage parts of the Bv-215 next to an FM 1/48 Bv-212. That’s what I call a ‘Big Brother’.

        This is the only kit of this aircraft available in 1/48 scale and, while pricey and requiring a good level of skill, will make an exceptional addition to any collection. One final note, Mr. Kappner informs me that the mold release agent issue on the wings has been resolved on future castings. Review kit compliments of my pocket.

Matt

Photos and text © by Matt Swan