During the latter part of 1944, when the High Command of the Luftwaffe saw that there was a dire need to put up a strong defense against the devastating allied bombing raids, on September 8 they asked aircraft manufacturers Messerschmitt, Arado, Focke-Wulf, Heinkel, Junkers and Blohm & Voss to propose designs for single-engined light fighters weighing no more than 2000 kg that would use one BMW 003 jet engine per unit.

Owing to the war-related scarcity of strategic materials such as aluminum, the jets were required to be simplified in order to be built using a strict minimum, as well as to be built in adequate quantities as quickly as possible in underground factories. Despite these requirements that would impinge on the overall quality of the new planes, their performance was required to surpass that of the best piston-engined fighters, being able to reach a maximum speed of 750 km/h with a minimum combat action time of 30 minutes.

Blohm & Voss submitted two preliminary designs, the P 210 tailless swept wing jet and the more conventional, tailed P 211. Only the P 211 was progressed further. Typical of all the entrants, use of non-strategic materials, such as wood and steel were paramount along with ease of construction. The P.211.02 was a straight wing design, but lost out to Heinkel's He-162 and never progressed past the design stage.

THE KIT

In the 1990s, 'Luft 46' was very much the rage and Special Hobby/MPM were major players in providing kits of these projects. This particular kit is one of Special Hobby's earliest offerings. As such, it contains one sprue of plastic along with a vacuformed canopy, a decal sheet, and a generic Luftwaffe photo etch fret.

The plastic is lightly engraved and has quite a bit of flash. There are also ejector pin marks to deal with. Sprue attachment gates are also quite large. This all means that every part will require clean-up prior to use. Much of the p.e. fret is to be used for the interior and includes a harness and rudder pedals. The rest is antennas.

There is a plastic slab that doubles as a main gear well with a piece of engine detail on that side with the cockpit fitting on the other side. This is a seat, pedals and control stick. There is some room for nose weight, but no amount is listed.  An exhaust piece completes the items installed in the fuselage. There are no locators for any of these pieces. A separate intake piece is provided.

Wings are top and bottom half and all flight surfaces are butt joins. Landing gear struts are fairly thick as are the wheels. There is a shallow depression for the nose leg, but nothing for the main gear. Gear doors are also fairly thick. The vacuform canopy is still nice and clear.

Instructions are a single flolded piece of paper with five construction steps on one side along with a parts diagram, history, and two camo and markings options. One is the box art plane while the other in overall RLM 02 as would befit the prototype. A Propagteam decal sheet is included and should prove to be very thin.

CONCLUSIONS

This is a fairly simple kit that should be a good one for those who want to stretch their skills into short run kits. While Luft '46 is no longer in vogue, these sorts of kits are fun to build, especially as their camouflage schemes can be a showcase for the modeler's creativity. I know I did a lot of these back in the day and still enjoy building one every once in a while.

February 2023

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