This aircraft is completely made up, a sort of 'Luft '04', but there is a bit of history included in with the kit so allow me to paraphrase.

"Heinkel proposed, in December 1943, Project P.1180, a new light fighter design that was promised to be in production in around 90 days. Full production was promised 3 months later. Jumping on it, the Luftwaffe gave the design its blessing and the highest priority (adding yet another new type to the mix). 30 days after promising the plane, the first prototype took to the air. It was powered by the Junkers Jumo 004B turbojet and had greatly swept wings for high speed and a very short fuselage. Using parts from the Me-262 allowed this plane to be built in record time. The first squadron was formed in mid-1944 and went into action against Allied bombers at the earliest opportunity. Probably the most unusual part of the airframe was the use of skids mounted under the engines and the nose in place of normal wheels, a requirement as the wing root areas were used for the cannon. This made for a rather long landing run, especially on wet grass and plans for later variants included a wheeled landing gear."

THE KIT

           

Those of you who have built other aircraft in this series know that they are well designed and very well molded. Only the usual clean up is needed to get the bits and pieces ready for gluing. After that, the model goes together quite quickly.

Just Fantasy kits have excellent cockpit detail and this one is no exception, though it does look small and cramped for the poor pilot. I'd like to see belts molded in with the seat in future releases if that is possible. The engines appear to be similar to those in the Monogram 262, a logical choice as they are well designed. All the flying surfaces are butt joined so inserting some sort of pins would be the wisest move for the builder. The rudder is a separate piece and like the tailplanes, are from a 262. The skids are a single piece for the engines nacelles and the nose version has a two part fairing. Detail on all the parts is engraved and excellent. Two vac canopies are provided in case one is botched (thank you) and there is a decal sheet provided for a set of fictitious markings. I've never had really good luck with these decals so will probably raid the spares bin when I build mine. Of course, no camo scheme is given as it is up to the builder to use a bit of imagination in that regard.

CONCLUSIONS