Planet Models Horten Ho-7

I'd like to wish the 72 Land nation a happy Independence Day. Unlike the rest of the country, the Great Northwest is still sitting in the 70s. We are supposed to break out the 80s shortly, though I hope we can avoid the 90s and 100s that the rest of the US seems to be getting roasted by at present. Y'see, that is one of the reasons why we live in Seattle...

But I digress. Since I finished the Me-262 project earlier this year, I haven’t spent much time on Luftwaffe subjects. I started out primarily interested in WW2 aircraft, though in recent years I seem to have drifted into many more Cold War types. Even when I was doing mostly WW2 stuff it tended to be RAF. But no matter what time period or nationality I am interested in at the time, I always have a serious moral weakness for those odd and wonderful experimental types. And today’s completed model falls squarely in that category.

It is the Horten Ho-7, one of the brothers’ long series of flying wings. It is similar in layout and size to the Northrop N9M (and I’ve built the Sword kit). It is still a fairly basic layout, quite a distance from the more sophisticated Ho-229 batwing shape.

The kit is by Planet. The company is a godsend for those who love the unusual and can manage the use of superglue. I have literally dozens of their kits, and have been making an effort in the last year to get more of them into my production stream (the Me-109TL was one of theirs as well). This example is a good one for a first resin kit, since the flying wing itself is one piece of solid resin that everything attachs to. Since there are four wheels, no drilling for space to locate nose weight is required, and the paint scheme is simple (RLM70 over RLM65). In fact, I think the biggest construction challenge was getting the separate prop pieces all assembled at the correct angle. I’m still not sure they are right.

Xtracolour paints were used throughout (including matte RLM02 for the wheel wells). Decals, such as they are, were provided by the kit. One exception is the walkways, which I made from a sheet of black decal material.

Flying wings can be addictive. I’ve already built the AMT B-35 and B-49 (in its whif disguise as the Northrop Vector, the fourth V-bomber) and the Sword N9M. Planet also does the N1M, and RS Models is releasing an injected version of the XP-79, and there are numerous others, mostly in the resin world. So if you want to do a flying wing, you have many options. Of course there is the mediocre Testors B-2.

This is completed model #402 (#27 for the year), finished in June of 2012.