Tamiya 1/48 He162 A-2 “Salamander”

Second build off the bench for 2019 is this HE162 A-2 Salamander. Wanted to build something unusual and with not a lot of parts for a quick relaxing build. This kit fulfills most of those requirements except most of the parts are rather tiny. For example, last pic is of the main landing gear which required 10 different parts to assemble excluding the wheels. The He 162 was developed to full fill the German Air Ministry's requirement for a light weight, simple to build single engine jet. It's construction would be a combination of a steel frame covered with a metal skin and nose and wings made of wood. It used the BMW 003 jet engine, had an ejection set and a bubble type canopy. She had several problems to over come in her development, to wit, she killed it's first test pilot. On December 10, 1944, while during a high speed low altitude fly by in front of Nazi and Air Ministry officials,the right wing started to peel off dropping an aileron. It pitched into ground.

None the less several were produced and deployed but well too late in the war to make any difference. After the war British pilots testing large amounts of German aircraft noted the He 162 in the hands of an experienced pilot could be an extremely potent weapon. The He 162's design characteristics of a forward cockpit, bubble canopy, tricycle landing gear, ejection set and high mounted wings would become standard features for subsequent jet aircraft development.

All in all this Tamiya kit went together in usual Tamiya fashion, no real issues were experienced during it's construction. Just be aware there are some rather small and delicate parts. A nice feature is the inclusion of a round weight to be placed in the fuselage to keep the nose down. Nice touch. Built OOB , including the decals, and I used Model Master and Tamiya paints to finish her off. Nice little kit that also includes the BMW engine to display as a separate model on a stand or mounted on the jet with the nacelle open showing it's detail. I'll build the support stand and engine later.

13 additional images. Click to enlarge.