Let me preface the kit description by stating that this is a snap kit, designed for new modelers and as such, the parts are not fiddly and are rather robust. This also means that there are not things like separate gear doors, separate gear legs and sometimes wheels are molded on the gear/door piece. These are, for lack of a description, designed to actually be played with, therefore the robust construction.

Having said that, the kit is very nicely molded. The engraved and raised detail is quite good though the former is a bit heavy (sort of like a Matchbox kit). The kit includes a nose weight to keep it from tail sitting. There is a very basic interior that has no control stick and only has a slot in instrument panel. There is a somewhat thick, one-piece canopy that snaps into place. There are separate gear doors for those who want to build the model gear up. This will provide enhanced play realism as no 262 flew missions with the gear down. Under the wings there are R4M rockets. The mounts are molded in place so if you are doing a plane that didn't fly in the last month or so of the war, you have a lot of sanding to do. The mass of rockets are separate. For those wondering, you can see the underside of the cockpit tub through the main wheel wells, but there is no detail.

Instructions are very well drawn and clearly show where all the bits go. There is no painting information in the construction process. Markings are provided as both standard water slide decals and as stickers. They are for Heinz Bar's plane and instructions would have you paint it RLM 81/83 on the upper surfaces with RLM 78 on the underside. Clearly this last is a glitch and it should be RLM 76. The decals are well printed and, of course, are lacking a swastika. A note suggests painting the interior RLM 02 (it should be RLM 66) and the instrument panel flat black (it should also be RLM 66).

I had this one sitting on the shelf for a long time and after reading the Osprey book on bomber and recce Me-262 units, had a desire to grab this one and build it as a bomber. Of course, the kit is not so equipped, so I put out a request for bits and Jim Claugh was kind enough to send me the racks and bombs from a Monogram kit that were spare to his needs.

I started by assembling what little there was of the interior. Basically an instrument panel as the kit has no control stick or rudder pedals. There is also no area behind the cockpit so when the canopy gets installed, there will be a large hole through which you can see the inside of the fuselage. The cockpit was slotted into the fuselage after painting with RLM 66 and some dry brushing. The nose gear well was also installed and at this time the fuselage halves glued together. I also inserted a bit of extra weight at this time, just in case. The seam work was filled with either super glue or Tamiya fine white putty. When sanding on it, the plastic gave off an odd odor. I think this is PVC and not styrene so it may be that your cement will not be effective. Tamiya liquid cement works on PVC just as well as styrene so I had no issues there.

The wings were then cemented together. These needed to be taped together to allow the cement to dry before the large gap at the join was filled. I also filled gaps on the leading and trailing edge. Snap it may be, but tight snap it is not always. When the wing assembly was finally attached to the fuselage, there were rather large gaps at the rear wing to fuselage join that needed extra attention. When the tailplanes were installed, there were no issues. Installing the engine pods produced the same issue with gaps, again, some quite large. The nose weight and gun access panel was then glued on and the usual filler used.

I then installed the bomb racks. Since they are not designed for this kit, figuring out where they were supposed to go was a bit of a task, but thanks to google, I was able to find some photos that helped out.  Once those were glued in place and the area around them where I wiggled them about for a proper fit was cleaned up, I masked and installed the canopy in preparation for painting.

I chose an older Superscale sheet, 48-780 as it had a nice fighter-bomber scheme in it from Stab./KG 76 from May of 1945. This one was in RLM 82/83/76. There was no real indication of what the upper surface was like so I did the wings and tailplanes in a standard splinter scheme. The fuselage, however, got a random pattern in RLM 82/83 in a medium density. The fin tip and nose were painte RLM 25 green which is surprisingly close to RLM 83. The forward engine cowlings were painted red. It was not an easy task to mask the latter as there is no easy panel line so I winged it. I confess that it took me quite a while to finish painting. I got sidetracked so it was several weeks before the paint was done.

FINAL BITS

Once the painting was done, I did the landing gear so I could have it on its legs before applying the gloss clear coat that usually comes before applying decals. When installing the main gear legs, be sure to snap on the retraction struts first or you will have difficulty getting them in place. Since this is basically the snap kit for beginners, the parts are hefty and the attachment points large. Fortunately, the weight provided is enough to prevent tail sitting. With the gear in place, I gave the kit a coat of clear gloss in preparation for the decals. At this time I also did some touch up painting and I painted the R4M racks with a wood color and most of these were unpainted. The rocket group itself was painted black. In case you are wondering why I kept these on, these rockets were used just as effectively in ground attack missions as they were against bombers.

With that done, I turned to the decals. Despite being 10 years old, the decals performed superbly, reacting well to setting solutions. Since the kit offers only stickers, I used both the unique and most of the data markings from the sheet. Though some of the red ones are near invisible, they do help to flesh things out a bit. Adding the data decals added nearly a week to the build as I am pretty glacial about all that.

After all the decals were on, the entire airframe was given a coat of clear matte and the masking removed from the canopy. A bit of touch-up painting (like formation lights) and then the main wheels were snapped in place, and the bombs glued in place, and I was done.

CONCLUSIONS

Thanks to my less than lightning fast building, this one took probably as long to build as would have been a Tamiya or Monogram 262 (I have not built the Hobby Boss or Dragon version), much of that additional time spent masking and painting. Those who consider themselves enthusiasts will not like this one for the lack of things like pitot tubes, the area behind the cockpit, and pretty bare wheel wells, not to mention the beefy parts. However, it is a great kit for the beginner or those who just want an inexpensive kit. I think it turned out very well for what it is and would not hesitate to recommend it.