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1/18 scale Instytucie Szybownictwa IS-A Salamandra 53 scratchbuild model

The text following is to describe the 1/18 scale Instytucie Szybownictwa IS-A Salamandra 53 (1953 version) model building, as produced by aviation factories throughout Poland.

1/18 scale Wallis WA-116 Agile autogyro scratchbuild model

The following construction is a tribute to RAF Wing Commander Kenneth Horatio Wallis DSO MBE CEng FRAeS PhD, a pioneer gyrocopter aviator, who passed away early on Sunday morning, September 1st 2013. Ken was 97 years old. During the WWII, Wallis served in the Royal Air Force as Westland Lysander and Wellington pilot and flew 28 bomber missions over Germany. After the War, he flew the massive Convair B-36 and later involved in research and development, before retiring in 1964. He later became one of the leading exponents of autogyros and earned 34 world records, still holding eight of them at the time of his death. He was an inspiration to us all and we shall greatly miss him. A local hero and a national treasure.





He was born on the 26th April 1916, at Ely in Cambridgeshire. With his father and uncle having built an aeroplane in 1908 to fly the channel in a competition that was eventually won by Louis Bleriot, Ken Wallis acquired an interest in practical mechanics at an early age and by the time he was eleven years old had built his own motorcycle. He eventually turned his attention to aviation following a flying demonstration he watched in 1936 of the Henri Mignet HM-14 Flying Flea / Pou Du Ciel.





Ken will be greatly missed by the Flixton museum members. He was a frequent visitor, generous fundraiser and a great ambassador. In addition to the numerous professional institutions who welcomed Ken as a member and the vast number of clubs who regarded him with great respect and fondness, many ordinary people will also feel a loss in one way or another. Even a short chat with him left the individual feeling that it was something special and his warmth made them feel that he would remember them! Ken was recognised wherever he went. Admirers would soon gather and he would usually produce a small clipboard from a pocket, to sign and give away autographed postcards of him flying the "Little Nellie". I am sure that many a childless adult has asked for a card to give to their "offspring". Ken was inspirational, a great role model and possessed a rare old-world charm plus the impeccable manners of his age; all without a hint of grandeur. I am not alone in thinking that he was probably the grandfather figure we would all have liked to have had at some time. Norfolk was Ken's home from 1963 and I venture to think he was appreciated by such a large part of its population that he was likely a close second to its most revered inhabitant: Horatio Nelson.

Goodbye Ken - our gyrocopter aviation hero and national treasure.

1/18 scale Flettner Fl-282 V21 Kolibri scratchbuild model

After request, a 1/18 scale Fl-282 V6 helicopter with WWII Kriegsmarine markings built for a wealthy collector from Kiel, Germany. A second Luftwaffe's Fl-282 V21 model followed for my own personal collection at home. Since the whole project cost (CAD design, 3D printing & model building) was entirely funded by the client, I did not hesitate to use the best available materials & machines to do the job. The text follows, is to describe the Flettner Fl-282 Kolibri ("B-0" series) helicopter as manufactured by Anton Flettner Flugzeugbau GmbH on early 1940ies, used by Kriegsmarine & Luftwaffe during WWII and scratch built by me as a 1/18 scale model, now days.





Anton Flettner was a German aviation engineer & inventor who made important contributions on airplane & helicopter design. During the WWI, Anton Flettner developed remote control & pilotless aircraft projects, which culminated in the prototype Siemens Schuckert Werke 1000 kg wire guided air to surface missile of 1918. Following WWI, he directed aeronautical & hydrodynamic research institute in Amsterdam and during the WWII, he headed the Anton Flettner Flugzeugbau GmbH, which specialized in helicopters. It is believed that the firm was founded in Berlin in 1935. By this time, however, Flettner had developed the idea of counter-rotating, intermeshing twin rotors. Many of his advisers thought that the airflow disturbed by the intermeshing blades would make this system less efficient than one using a single rotor; but Flettner believed that any problems thus encountered would be more than offset by the reduced drag resulting from having no external rotor-carrying structure. His pioneer work is often overshadowed by the more publicised activities of his contemporaries Heinrich Karl Johann Focke and Igor Sikorsky; yet Flettner's helicopter, was far superior to the Henrich Focke's FW-61 and made a successful free flight several months before Igor Sikorsky's VS-300 began tethered flights.

Following pictures taken at Pfaffenwiesbach a district of the municipality Wehrheim, Germany. This artistic wall painting cultural monument, created by the local municipal council in memory of Anton Flettner who was the village teacher in Pfaffenwiesbach from 1906 to 1909.





Although Anton Flettner built his helicopters for the German military, his wife Lydia Freudenberg Flettner was Jewish. Because of his personal friendship relationship with head of Gestapo, Heinrich Himmler, Anton Flettner's Jewish wife and their family safely moved to Sweden for the duration of World War II. Anton Flettner's partner and confidant was Dr. Kurt Hohenemser, a brilliant and thorough engineer who developed the details necessary for the helicopter's success. Dr. Hohenemser's father was also Jewish, yet the pair remained unharmed during their tenure together throughout the War as they worked to develop the helicopter for military use. While the final product could be factory assembled, Anton Flettner and his partner Dr. Kurt Hohenemser insisted that they were the only ones who were capable of assembling the complex intermeshing rotor gearbox assembly. However, plans for 1000 helicopters mass production were made, the project was disrupted by the destruction of the designated factory by Allied bombing.



In following pictures, Anton Flettner is proudly posing in front of his Fl-282s fleet at Schweidnitz (today Świdnica, Poland), on October 1944. The first helicopter is a V14 registered as CJ-SH.





Upon the WWII conclusion, Anton Flettner was held in the "Dustbin" interrogation camp at Kransberg castle. After 1945, Flettner, along with many other aviation pioneers, was brought to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip. He started Flettner Aircraft Corporation, which developed helicopters for the US military. His company was not commercially successful, but his work was shared with the Army Air Corps. Many of his designs, such as intermeshing rotor concept, saw widespread use in a series of postwar helicopters built by Kaman for the US Navy and USAF. Anton Flettner moved to the United States in 1947 to work as a consultant to the Office of Naval research and became the chief designer of Kaman Aircraft, creating the Kaman HH-43 Huskie, a concept with intermeshing rotors. He died at age 76 in New York City, USA on December 29th, 1961 and buried in Eddersheim cemetery at Frankfurt, Germany where he was born. In following photograph, Anton Flettner (2nd from left) meets Wernher von Braun (3rd from left).

1/18 scale Bölkow Bo-102 Helitrainer scratchbuild model

The Bölkow Bo-102 Helitrainer was an unusual ground-based helicopter training aid that was developed and built by Bölkow of Germany in the late 1950s. It embodied all essential elements of a conventional helicopter, but was mounted on an articulated gantry to allow a student controlled experience of helicopter systems. Designed to be mounted on a swivelling captive rig the Bölkow Bo-102 Helitrainer allowed trainee pilots to practice procedures such as engine starting, rotor engagement and manipulation of the flight controls. Many of the Bo 102's components, including the single bladed fiberglass main rotor were used in the company's next design, the Bölkow Bo-103.







Rolled out in 1957, this Helitrainer was powered by a Hirth 3-cylinder / 2-stroke 40hp ILO L3X375 piston engine rated at 30 kW, driving a simple 21 foot one-bladed fiberglass rotor with a counterweight. In all 18 of these Helitrainers were built operating throughout Europe, training military helicopter pilots. Although unable to fly, they were ideal for the teaching of hovering techniques and were replaced by dual trainer helicopters.







The Bölkow Bo-102 Helitrainer offered a variety of advantages for a safe helicopter training and was developed in land and water based versions, both of which were semi-captive. The first training section was conducted on this model mounted on a boogie. It facilitated the training of starting, tuning the rotary speed, taking off, hovering, turning, and landing. Simple exercising device for beginners’ training. Safety risk minimized by captivation, yet limited flight maneuvers possible. This feature allowed the helicopter to rise to a height of 2 m (6 ft), turn around a vertical axis and dip at up to 6° but prevented it from flying outside these limits.

Looks like a kiddie heliride, a toy for big boys huh?



Unfortunately, the Bölkow Bo-102 Helitrainer did not gain general approval because of its costs being nearly as high as a small helicopter. Luckily, very few of them, are still surviving as public display exhibit at the Hubschraubermuseum Bückeburg Germany, the helicopter museum Weston and in Rota museum Spain. Parts of BO-102B were found at a freight forwarding company in Vlotho and donated to the helicopter museum in Buckeburg. The workshop team, managed to restore few of these experimental helicopter training devices.





Technical data & general characteristics

• Type designation: Bo-102B Helitrainer
• Usage: Single seated captive helicopter trainer for basic helicopter training
• Year of construction: 1958
• Manufacturer: Bölkow Entwicklungen KG
• Country: Germany
• Length: 5.68 m
• Main rotor area: 34.8 m² (374 sq feet)
• Main rotor diameter: 6.58 m (21 ft 8 in)
• Powerplant: 1 x Hirth 3-cylinder / 2-stroke 40hp ILO L3X375 piston engine rated at 30 kW
• Power: 40 shp
• Gross weight: 770 kg (1697 lb)
• Take off weight without a platform: 325kg
• Crew: 1 student pilot & 1 trainer (on additional seat)
• Speed: Handcuffed on the ground
• Range: Stationary base coach

[center]1/18 scale Focke Wulf FW-190D9 Dora & Fieseler Fi-103R2 Reichenberg Mistel
21st Century Toys & Pegasus Hobbies conversion & scratchbuild[/center]
The Mistel (Mistletoe in German language), also known as Beethoven Gerät or Vati und Sohn (Daddy and Son), was a Luftwaffe composite aircraft type of bomber, appearing late in World War II. The Mistel composites were ultimately born of desperation due to Allied numerical superiority in both men and material. The Mistel series of composite aircraft are without a doubt one of the strangest concepts to achieve operational status with the Luftwaffe. The original concept was proposed to the RLM in 1941 by Siegfried Holzbauer, a Junkers test pilot. His idea was to make use of "tired" Junkers Ju-88 airframes by packing them with explosives, fly them near a target and crash them into the target after the fighter had released itself. The fighter pilot would control the "missile" after release by remote control. To turn the tide of battle the German aircraft industry resorted to designing unmanned explosive laden aircraft launched and controlled by a parent aircraft. Although the first test of the concept was made in 1942 involving a Messerschmitt Bf-109s and an unmanned Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug DFS-230 troop glider with a specialised 1800 kg (3960 lb) warhead, as the war progressed the concept gradually shifted from an offensive weapon to a purely defensive weapon.

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Early Mistel combinations involved Messerschmitt Bf-109 and Focke Wulf FW-190 fighters acting as parent aircraft to mainly converted Junkers Ju-88 explosive carrier aircraft, so DFS-230s was first tasked with developing the tripod strut supports to mate the two machines. These hooked into plates on the fighter's wing roots while a single pole supported the fighter's tail and kept the fuselage axes parallel. In some combinations the fighter sat at a 15 degrees nose down angle. The first such composite aircraft flew in July 1943 and was promising enough to begin a programme by Luftwaffe test unit Kampfgeschwader KG-200, code-named "Beethoven". It proved successful enough for the RLM to approved a further 15 conversions. Tests with Junkers Ju-88 fuselage sized hollow charge warheads against the French battleship Oran proved to be successful and an eventual thickness of 60 feet of reinforced concrete was breached in further tests. Flight testing was finished by October 1943 with concentrated development of warheads proceeding next. The first unit to receive the Mistel was the Second Staffel of the Kampfgeschwader KG-101, commanded by Captain Horst Rudat. But before Rudat could move his Staffel to Grove things had come to the boil in France, for on the June 6 Allied forces had landed in Normandy. Accordingly, the few Mistel combinations available were ferried to St Dizier in France, for operations against the invasion fleet. The Mistel pilots did claim some hits, but none of these are confirmed in Allied records. An explanation for this could be that some of the hits were on the old French battleship Courbet, which was being used as a block ship for the British Mulberry harbour at Arromanches and specially dressed up as a decoy by the Allies. Since the ship was already lying on the sea bottom, in shallow water, the Royal Navy were more than happy to have the Germans attack her in preference to more worthwhile targets. So Courbet was dressed up to look as conspicuous as possible, with an enormous tricolour complete with the cross of Louraine; thereafter she acted as a magnet for attacks. She certainly collected several bombs and torpedoes, and possibly a Mistel or two. Over 250 Mistels of various combinations were built, but like all the Third Reichs super weapons, they proved too little too late and met limited success.

Mistel combinations such as the following, were seen in actual operative use:

• Junkers Ju-88A4 with Messerschmitt Bf-109F4 Franz (aka Mistel 1) and
  
• Junkers Ju-88A4 with Focke Wulf FW-190A8/F8 Würger (aka Mistel 2).

Some other combinations such as the following, were projected for use:

• Junkers Ju-88A6/G1 with Focke Wulf FW-190A6 Würger (aka Mistel 3a),
  
• Junkers Ju-88A4/H4 with Focke Wulf FW-190A8 Würger (aka Mistel 3b) and
  
• Junkers Ju-88G1/H4 with Focke Wulf FW-190F8 Würger (aka Mistel 3c).

Finally, there were a variety of only in paper proposed plans such as:

• Junkers Ju-88G7 with Focke Wulf Ta-152H,
  
• Siebel Si-204 with Akaflieg Darmstadt München DM-1 Lippisch,
  
• Focke Wulf Ta-154 Moskito with Focke Wulf FW-190A8 Würger,
  
• Junkers Ju-287 with Messerschmitt Me-262A1a Schwalbe (aka Mistel 4),
  
• Arado E.377A flying bomb with Heinkel He-162 Volksjäger (aka Mistel 5),
  
• Dornier Do-217K with Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug DFS-228 and
  
• Arado Ar-234 Blitz with Fieseler Fi-103 V-1 Vergeltungswaffen flying bomb.

The following article is to describe the step by step building process of the 1/18 scale Focke Wulf FW-190D9 Dora toy model by 21st Century Toys, combined with the 1/18 scale Fieseler Fi-103 V-1 Vergeltungswaffen flying bomb by Pegasus Hobbies, into a completely fictional Mistel project. Both 1/18 scale kits, bought a couple of years ago and waited patiently in my hobby room, to be combined. As far as I know, there is no evidence or proof that any variant of the Focke Wulf FW-190 fighter was combined as Mistel with a Fieseler Fi-103 V-1 Vergeltungswaffen flying bomb. Nevertheless, this exact mythical combination seems familiar among the scale modellers because a drawing showing a Fieseler Fi-103 V-1 Vergeltungswaffen flying bomb combined with a Focke Wulf FW-190A8 Würger. However, it is likely that the document was made after the WWII and a V-1 flying bomb and FW-190 fighter Mistel combination, was never actually existed.

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To make this Mistel model look even more exotic, I decided to:

• Slaughter the Focke Wulf FW-190D9 Dora toy model's fuselage & wings in a way to present opened areas as cutaway and
  
• Convert the flying bomb into a Fieseler Fi-103R2 Reichenberg Mistel piloted version, which is almost identical and has the same length as the basic Fieseler Fi-103 V-1 Vergeltungswaffen flying bomb. Keep in mind that the most known experimental Reichenberg R4 & R5 piloted versions, are longer than the standard V-1 version.

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