Messerschmitt Me-163B

Today’s completion started out in disappointment and ended up in great satisfaction.

One day I was exercising my Google Fu concerning Me-163 Komets. The main thing I was looking for was photos of the captured RAF example that was repainted in British markings. What I actually ran across was a paint job that I had never seen on a Komet before. It was on a Rocketeer sheet, but I soon found out that the sheet was long out of print. Quite bummed, I decided to place a request on the 72^nd Scale Aircraft boards to see if anyone had the sheet but had no plans to use it. Hopes were not high.

But a gentleman with the screen name of Pyran was kind enough to let me know I could have his. He mailed it with no cost to me. Once again I have cause to be grateful to a member of that board. They are always willing to be helpful and rarely charge anything for the service (unless they are explicitly selling items). So Pyran, I tip my bottle of Cherry Coke in your direction; you were a lifesaver this day.

Komets are simple kits. I used the Academy version which I had in the stash. The one trouble I had was with the Master turned brass pitot and gun barrel set. Since this was an unarmed glider, I didn’t use the gun barrels and the pitot proved to be close enough to scale that it was literally impossible for my sausage fingers to get it out of the packaging without bending it slightly. I ended up using the kit pitot, but it is admirably thin itself.

Me-163s are one of the few aircraft that I have done a long series of (like Hurricanes, A-4s, and Eurofighters). The attraction is that there are nice models – specifically Academy – of the main variants, and numerous kits – in both plastic and resin – of many of the lesser known variants. I supposed you could consider much of the Lippisch output to be in the Komet bloodline, since many of them strongly resemble the Me-163s. But even the major 163 subvariants (DFS 194, A, B, S, C, P-20 jet, I-270, 263, J8M1) are pretty well covered.

Painting was easy, with only two colors (red and Alclad White Aluminum) required on the fuselage/wings. The decals also performed as expected. The result is a fairly unique model in any lineup of Me-163s.

This is completed aircraft #483 (16 aircraft, 3 ordnance, 14 vehicles for the year 2017), finished in December of 2017.