1/72 Polistil Messerschmitt 262A

Gallery Article by Paolo De Sanctis on Oct 4 2010

 

The aircraft: no account is necessary for the legendary Me-262A; she was the first operative Jet-engined fighter and the Allies were lucky enough for Hitler's stupidity to stop the project in order to use it as fighter-bomber.  If mass used, the 262 could have inflicted severe losses to the Allied formation that raided Germany at that time.  She gave them a bad time however, until Germany surrendered.  That Great Man that was Gen. Adolf Galland once said: "It's a dream driven by angels". 

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The model: This is a very old model.  I built it long ago in 1980, following step by step a noteworthy article on a specialist magazine of the time.  The box is of the disappeared Italian firm Polistil, that produced a few kits in the '70s.  It's a shame this firm has stopped because their kits were very fine.  In those years I was a novice in this hobby and I didn't know the presence of the filler, nor did I use it.

I hand-brushed the kit using Humbrol Enamel paints (as usual for me) and I followed the very fine Christopher Chant book's as guide, "Aircraft of W.W.2".  The colour's table of this fighter depicted it painted as per the standard pattern of that era, like the believed right Greens-camo scheme.  At that time the official knowledge called for RLM 70/71/65 with light grey sides for almost all the German fighters.  So I used Humbrol H.91, 30 and 65 respectively plus H.64 sides (background and blotches of 91).  The cockpit was carefully scratchbuilt using ...a mere cardboard (I didn't know the plasticard!) although invisible after the canopy was closed.  

I wanted to display a III Staffel/JG7 n.8 aircraft of the famous "Kommando Nowotny" unit, in the Spring of 1945.  I observed many photos of the real subject also, to try to do my best ;-)

Many greetings to all the ARCair friends!

Paolo De Sanctis

Photos and text © by Paolo De Sanctis