Horten HoXIIIb

[StuartA]

I should have this by the weekend.
The aircraft was designed in response to a specification issued by the Luftwaffe designated "Volksjager"This called for a single seat fighter jet capable of taking on allied bomber formations and their escorts.
It was designed to have a steel tubing and wood frame,covered in ply.
A full scale unpowered prototype was built and flown successfully,the pilot reporting that it handled well.I suspect that things would have been rather different in powered flight!
The drawing is from Luft46,the other two are digital renders,not the actual parts.
Design work by Lippisch on the Etsy site,the printing by Shapeways.

 

[StuartA]

The parts have arrived.It will be a couple of days until I have time to do much.First a coat of plastic primer,then a fill coat of primer and talc.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work so far!

 

[StuartA]

Left photo-I gave it a coat of spray can plastic primer,then applied a fill of grey primer mixed with talc.Sanded back with fine wet'n' dry.
Right photo-a coat of grey primer/undercoat.I'll leave this as is for the time being.I'm mulling over whether to use the same camo.scheme as previous models or to try something different.Maybe a night,desert or winter scheme.
I made a start on fixing the u/c.Glueing these two types of nylon is a real pain.I had asked the designer to make the full gears fit into sockets in the wheel wells,but the message must have got lost along the way.The Zap is slow to cure,and doesn't seem to react to a kicker spray.There is no way my hands could hold thing steady,so plan B was employed.
I made up a small amount of epoxy putty.This won't adhere to the nylon so a piece of masking tape was used to hold it in place.The Zap didn't adhere to the putty(whew,I'd envisioned having to do a lot of cleaning up) Just a wee bit of tape to scrape away.
Once all the parts are in place same procedure as the top surface.

 

[StuartA]

The more I look at this plane the more I doubt it is an actual Horten design.The XIII most certainly was,there are photos of it in flight.But the inclusion of a large fin is contrary to their whole design ethos.Unless it was insurance against the terra incognito that was supersonic flight?

 

[Wurger]

 

[StuartA]

A bit more done.
'From the left-it was tail heavy;I first tried plugging the jet exhaust and filling the tube with shot.Sealed with a short section of glue stick!This wasn't enough,so I poured more shot in through the gear wells.
'Third photo is the gear doors being fixed,and the last the plane on its wheels.
Is there another aircraft with an offset nose wheel?

 

[Vic Balshaw]

One would not expect this to be tail heavy, glad you were able to fix it.

 

[StuartA]

One would not expect this to be tail heavy, glad you were able to fix it.

I think it's it's the tail itself that caused the problem

 

[StuartA]

A couple of coats of primer on the underside.
I decided to try a different camo scheme.Night,winter or desert?The night would to much of a contrast to the previous schemes and the winter didn't appeal.Only using what paints I have to hand I've decided on the desert scheme.Linen and ochre yellow are the colours;I considered beige but it's too pink.

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[StuartA]

Been a while,life's a bitch sometime.
'I couldn't find a camo scheme that I liked,so stuck with the tried and true in a different pattern.
I'm not sure about the position of the crosses,whether they should be oriented to the trailing edge or the center line of the plane.

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work so far!

 

[StuartA]

Bit more done.My eyesight makes positioning small transfers hard work!

 

[Vic Balshaw]

Looks good.

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[StuartA]

And completed.The colours on the tail are a nod to those used on the HoIX/229.Which is next on the list,hopefully by the month end.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work!