Herman Graf Bf 109G w/ W.Gr 21 (in progress)
Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2017 10:49 pm
I've been laid up after some foot surgery so I've had time to resurrect this languishing project. The plane is the familiar 21 Century Hermann Graf Bf 109G-5 which was fitted with the cannon pods. For some perverse reason I no longer remember I wanted to refit it with a set of the 21 cm rockets that Graf had installed on his plane when he was Geschwaderkommodore of JG 50 at Wiesbaden-Erbenheim Airdrome.
A former member here made some up and still offers them for sale at Shapeways.
However, once they arrived and I saw how delicate and fragile they were, I realized the aircraft would have to always sit on its deployed landing gear.
That posed another problem for me since the aircraft possesses the most unrealistic two dimensional gear molded onto the plane's gear doors. Since no one makes replacement gear I tried to modify the existing parts with some scratch built items that would at least look marginally better and compliment the new armament once they are painted. The gear will be a bit more correctly splayed when the wings are finally glued on with the proper dihedral. It's shown here with the unpainted rocket tubes temporarily installed for some glamour shots. Only complaint on those is that there is no mounting template so installing them is a exercise in patience. Octopus wrestling comes to mind. Did I mention they are delicate?
Still a l-o-n-g way to go and the aircraft is also getting a total repaint from nose to tail including what I hope will be a much better representation of the original Erla factory saw blade camo on the wings and tail. That glossy red nose will be addressed as well!
A former member here made some up and still offers them for sale at Shapeways.
However, once they arrived and I saw how delicate and fragile they were, I realized the aircraft would have to always sit on its deployed landing gear.
That posed another problem for me since the aircraft possesses the most unrealistic two dimensional gear molded onto the plane's gear doors. Since no one makes replacement gear I tried to modify the existing parts with some scratch built items that would at least look marginally better and compliment the new armament once they are painted. The gear will be a bit more correctly splayed when the wings are finally glued on with the proper dihedral. It's shown here with the unpainted rocket tubes temporarily installed for some glamour shots. Only complaint on those is that there is no mounting template so installing them is a exercise in patience. Octopus wrestling comes to mind. Did I mention they are delicate?
Still a l-o-n-g way to go and the aircraft is also getting a total repaint from nose to tail including what I hope will be a much better representation of the original Erla factory saw blade camo on the wings and tail. That glossy red nose will be addressed as well!
