Heller Fieseler Fi-103R5

Today's completion has something of an odd history. Well, don't they all around this place? In 2009, I built the Bachem Ba-349 that was in a Heller two-kit boxing, along with a Fieseler Fi-103 manned V1. The Fi-103 sat around long enough that I decided to go ahead and finish it so that it would stop staring at me from the workbench. The problem was that, somewhere in the intervening years, the canopy had been devoured by the Carpet Monster. I rummaged through the spares box and found a strange little clear fragment that was quite pointy. No idea what the donor kit was. But the rear of the clear bit, once trimmed, was fairly close to the dimensions of the back wall of the Fi-103's cockpit space. And thus the Fi-103R5 was born.

This is of course a whif, since the Fi-103 series only got to an R4 version before the new owners came calling in Berlin. It is a high-speed streamlined version of the manned V1, a weird concept no matter how you look at it.

If you're looking for information on the other versions of the Fi-103, there is always the Schiffer book by David Myhra. It's not long on text, but it does outline the looks of the various manned versions, mostly by way of digital art.

This is completed aircraft #443 (#6 of the year), completed in February of 2016.