Tamiya 1/100 Me-262 & Me-163

The Me-262 and Me-163 are milestones in aviation history, not only due to being the first operational jet-engined and rocket-powered aircraft respectively, but also because both were technological accomplishments, each in its own way, with their overall design presenting significant advanced features, such as the swept wings, with the Me-163 not having horizontal stabilizers at all!  The Me-262 is generally regarded as a great dogfighter, whereas the Me-163, despite its many idiosyncrasies, presented a certain degree of potential and effectiveness, especially taking into account the actual (in many ways restricting) conditions in which those planes had to operate.

It was late 60s-early 70s when Tamiya started to present their very nice 1/100 line of kits, this one first issued in 1972, then reboxed another two times, in 1974 and 2004. The specific kit is that final reboxing, given as a gift from my beloved local modeling club to my young sons in 2024. It comes in a small, excellent quality top opening box, carrying a very attractive box art of the two fighters flying together.

Upon opening the box, I was greeted with 49 light gray styrene parts, arranged in three equally sized sprues. Molding is excellent with no flash noted, with panel lines being a combination of very finely done raised and recessed and general shapes of parts looking accurate.

Despite the fact that, due to the nature of these kits, there’s not much in the cockpits other than plain seats, the nice looking pilots provided will fill the areas sufficiently. Landing gear for both kits is adequately represented, as are the distinctive Jumo engines of the Me-262. Tamiya beautifully supplies three ball bearings as nose weight for the Me-262. Finally, a very nice base is provided, so you can depict both fighters in a sort of flying formation.

Transparencies are very well molded and crystal clear. Instructions are nice, coming in the form of a small pamphlet, containing a short history of the types, a color reference chart, with the construction logically spread in 5 main steps, each one containing a couple of substeps, all nice and clear.

Two nice schemes are provided for each aircraft, all in RLM70/71/65. With the exception of the “white” sections looking “ivory” decals are superbly printed and still looking in good condition with little yellowing (which might hardly show onto the camo). The decals are politically correct, meaning you will have to source swastikas from spares, if you want your models to be historically correct.

Instructions want you to first assemble the Me-262 fuselage, trapping the seat, rear bulkhead and nose weight in between, then attach the wing, tail planes, canopy, landing gear (ground or flight), engines and canopy. If you resist the temptation to depict the Me-262 in “clean” configuration, you can add the bombs provided.

The Me-163 construction is next, which is as simplistic as the real bird is,  basically trapping the seat and pilot between the fuselage halves, then adding the wings, dashboard, canopy and landing skid (and wheels, if depicted on the ground).

Clearly, construction of both planes is totally uncomplicated and very pleasant even for a novice.

Unless you are scale-oriented, it is really hard to pass over this little dual combo gem: overall shapes of parts for both models look accurate, molding is super, construction is uncomplex and instructions are great as are the decals.

Still (2024) not extremely hard to find and offered at cheap prices, if you want an easy, pleasant dual build (let alone introducing a youngster to modeling) this is a kit worth tackling.

Happy Modeling!

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