REVELL 1/72 FOCKE-WULF "FLITZER"

Reviewer: Myself  (braithy@bigpond.com)

In early 1943, Focke-Wulf initiated a series of design studies for jet powered, single seated fighters.  A mock up construction was approved early the following year for a type given the name 'Project VI'.  This designation was later changed to 'Projekt VII' and the aircraft was given the codename "Flitzer" (Madcap).   The mid-fuselage wings had a moderate sweep back of about 32 degrees, twin booms and a high mounted tailplane.  Proposed armament consisted of two Mk 103 or Mk 108 30-mm cannon in the lower nose and two MG 151/20 20-mm cannon on the wings.  The Flitzer was well advanced in development with a full-sized mock-up and several sub-assemblies having been completed.  The project was eventually abandoned because its performance (830 km/h max) was no better than the Me 262 which was entering service.

This speculative subject comes packaged in a relatively small box containing 2 sprues of light grey injection mold plastic parts with a wealth of detail including finely engraved panel lines.  As far as I am aware, this kit has been manufactured under Revell's new tooling policy and the change in plastic quality and detail is visibly noticed.  There are about 33 parts in total and a one-piece canopy and all are crisp and nice quality.  The instructions are in the form of an 8-page A4 sized booklet (essentially two double-sided A3 sheets folded) that contains 15 easy to follow assembly steps, sprue diagrams, symbols, revell paint reference call outs and a hell of a lot of 'Attention' and 'Caution' paragraphs!

That said, construction starts with the cockpit, which has been reproduced very nicely by Revell.  Basically you attach a seat, stick, side-wall panels (with very fine raised detail) and bulkhead to a base unit with rudder pedals molded on. It fits very snuggly into its allocated space within the fuselage half along with an instrument panel - also containing finely raised detail - and nose wheel well interior.  The instructions suggest 5g of weight to place in the nose.  Joining the fuselage halves together created a bit of resistance due to the internal detail, but with the help of rubber bands for clamps and left to dry overnight only a very minor gap presence resulted - easily filled.  Very small indents under the nose of the fuselage represent the two Mk 103/108 cannons which in my opinion need to be just a small tad larger.

In wheels-up mode all the covers for main and nose wheel wells fit is superb, without any filler required (for a change).   The wings are two-piece each with upper and lower portions needing to be glued together.  Unfortunately, the interior walls for the main gear wheel wells have to be filed down otherwise the wing halves will not join nicely or evenly.  The wheel well detail is quite nice for this scale of a kit. 

As with most kits like this aircraft, the twin booms provide a hearty challenge - not so much as for fit but more for coaxing into the right sitting position.   These were a bit fiddly and not easy to get straight with several dry attempts having to be made.  Some would argue that you should just attach the main fuselage wings, ensure they dry in the correct position then put your booms on afterward (the instructions suggest this).  Others argue you should attach the boom to the wings, wait for them to dry and then put the wings on the aircraft and join with tailplane. I didn't like either of these options much (for the slight wrongful positioning and then allowing to dry would mean the effort is wasted) so I actually did the whole lot together at the same time - putting the main wings on the fuselage and before they dried placing the booms and tailplane on.  This worked quite well because the wings are quite rigid when even dry-fitted to the fuselage and also allowed a bit of room for flexibility.  However, the booms did leave a gap where they met the wing, that later required putty.  I guess this whole step is up to the individual modeller to decide the best strategy but whatever the case, a series of dry-fit testing is highly recommended.

The rest of construction was smooth sailing and I was quite impressed with the wing cannons which required no real attention to get to sit straight (the alignment pin is semi-circle which helps).  Just a small bit of filler was required at the wing roots and a hole underneath the rear exhaust needed to be 'rounded' out carefully with a hobby knife because it didn't represent a very nice circle.

Two speculative versions are produced by the kit, both requiring RLM 74, 75 and 76.  Using Humbrol paint, this was a bit difficult to match up, I mixed H79 (Blue-grey) with H34 (white) at about 80-20 units for RLM 74, H67 (Tank Grey) for RLM 75 and another concotion of H127 (Ghost Grey), H65 (blue) at about 70-30 for underside RLM 76.  For the latter, H175 is a direct match but is deleted from the Humbrol range so you will be lucky to get hold of it.  You could check out my Humbrol x-ref page (when its up) for a suitable match in another brand.  A splinter pattern was done on upper surfaces with mottled RLM 74 along the side-on perspective.  This made for an interesting and quite realistic effect.  The worst part about Revell's painting instructions is that it uses very fine dots for one particular upper-surface colour and even finer dots for the other - so be mindful of perhaps going cross-eyed when trying to distinguish the two!  The second version has an all-over upper surface RLM 75 drab with RLM 74 mottle over the upper surface and side-on, RLM 76 lower surface with a strip of RLM 04 on the wingtips.

The decals are thin and are reasonably good quality, conforming to surface detail very well, but also easy to tear with a tendency to curl and fold.  A fair bit of stencilling is provided but is invisible against the dark splinter camo background and mottling.  Naturally, swastikas have to be obtained from another source, and I used white outlined versions on the tail fins.  Identification of both versions is unknown, but obviously are speculative anyway, one having a striped red/yellow/red band on the rear of the booms and a '5' underneath forward of the cockpit, while the other has no band and a '10' under the cockpit.

Being a small kit it is not very expensive, and being engineered under Revell's new tooling policy has excellent detail for this scale, which represents excellent value for money.  This kit makes into a very attractive little model and adds a new dimension to the world war 2 enthusiasts display cabinet.  Comment about it's accuracy is hard to make considering very little reference material is available, so most details have been ascertained from an enthusiast who hosts a web site (details below) on this German subject material.  That said, it looks identical to the 3-view below with the addition of wing-mounted cannons and a pitot tube-like aerial extending from the left wingtip.

I would certainly recommend it highly to anyone who has an interest in this subject matter and would suit all skills but the very novice of the hobby due to the attention required with boom mounting as it is an excellent little kit indeed.

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There's an excellent site on the Net - Luftwaffe '46 which covers a lot of proposed and experimental German designs late in WW2, where I have taken a copy of this 3-view from.  Recommended site if you are interested in this subject.