Eduard 1/48 Bf-110C

[Crimea_River]

Just a bit of dabbling in recent days. The MG 15 receiver was darkened a tad and is now glued in. I had to cut off the fork on the mount and reposition it so the gun is swung out of the way. Looks a little less contrived than when it points straight back in my opinion.

For those of you who have or will get this kit, the instructions rather oddly show the gunsight crosshairs to be mounted on the post closest to the gunner, contrary to all picture references I've seen. I've therefore mounted the crosshairs as I think they should be, nearer the muzzle.

 

[Tony Hill]

Looking nice mate!

 

[Vic Balshaw]

That is looking awesome Andy.

 

[B-17engineer]

Good work Andy!

 

[Lucky13]

Fantastic work mate!

 

[rochie]

nice job Andy

 

[magnu]

Very nice Andy

 

[T Bolt]

Looks great Andy! and I love the bit of white wash I can see in that picture

 

[Crimea_River]

Cheers guys.

 

[Wayne Little]

8)

 

[Airframes]

Nice work Andy. The cross hairs could be mounted at the rear posotion, but this was normally for ground AA use, when a butt-stock was fitted. This was due to the different eye relief of the gunner. Front mounting is correct for air-to-air use, where, depending on angle, for example in an extreme oblique shot the rear post sight could be ignored, relying on the cross hairs to frame or 'lead' the target.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks Terry. Interesting.

 

[weinace]

What an excellent reference for anyone building this or Dragon's Bf110's.

I've added this to my favourites and am now looking for the Ju88 thread mentioned!

Fantastic building and research.

Regards,

weinace

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks weinace. here's the loooong Ju-88 thread:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/model-kit-reviews/revell-junkers-88-a1-1-32scale-15460.html

 

[Crimea_River]

Detail work on adding the ventral antenna. Kit was supplied with a PE affair but it was too flat for my liking so I decided to make my own.

Pic 1 measuring placement from 1/48 scale drawing
Pic 2 locating holes for the support stubs drilled
Pic 3 stubs added with stretched sprue and antenna added with fine copper wire.

Note, if anyone knwos the purpose of this antenna, I'd be interested to know. Paint to follow. DF Loop is next.

 

[Tony Hill]

Beautiful detail work Andy!!

A ventral antena would almost certainly only be used for "line of sight" signal, so I am guessing VHF. As it is underneath I would guess ground to air comms....Fighter controller set?

 

[B-17engineer]

Very nice detail work Andy!

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

I'm not sure about this atenna but it may be part of an early navagational radio. The majority of navagational atennas are mounted on the bottom since aircraft parts like wings and fuselage can attinuate or block navagational signals. It would pick up signals from navagational beacons set at known locations maked on the navagator's map. Instruments in the plane would indicate direction to or from the sending station helping the navagator cross reference the signals and pinpoint where they were. Just an educated guess but that would be my thought.

 

[Crimea_River]

Thanks guys.

NFN, there's a direction finding (DF) loop antenna mounted just forward of this little fence antenna. It turned on an axis and was controlled remotely from the radio operator's postion. If that's the navigation aid then I'm not sure what this other one did.

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

The navagational aids worked off of more than one antenna. The loop antenna was used for general direction. The problem with the loop antenna was that the station could either be in one direction or the other and therefore required two or more readings to get a resection. I believe the second antenna provided a second reference for the navagator. Also different navagation equipment required different antennas. Most, if not all, aircraft had more than one navagational aid for instrumental flying. I was an avionics tech so I have some idea but just not sure what they had back then.

After some thought, perhaps this antenna was use for determining distance to the transmitting station.