I'd be very hapy to upfront the cost for at least one full kit - I might actually end up taking two, but at least one definitely!
As far as colors go, it’s probably best to stick with late war Luftwaffe camo - which is actually more complicated than one might think. Standard colors would be RLM 81/82 top surfaces, and RLM 76 sides; the Sammelmitteilung from 1 Nov. 1944 stipulates that metal undersurfaces, wheel wells, internal areas (outside of the cockpit, which was to be RLM 66), etc of aircraft should remain unpainted, i.e. natural metal; only wooden and fabric-covered parts should retain a coat of 76 on the undersides. This is pretty much how late-production FW 190D and Ta 152 aircraft were finished.
In the case of the Ta 183, the wings and horizontal tail surfaces would have been of wooden construction, so they would have been painted 76 on the undersurfaces; the fuselage and vertical tail would have been metal, so these would likely have remained unpainted. However, in the case of the He 162, the rear fuselage was metal but it was usually still painted 76 on the undersides, because it represented such a small area and it wasn’t considered enough of a saving to not paint this small area. So, this thinking could also have applied to the Ta 183, in which case the entire aircraft would have been painted 76 on the undersides. Also, different production facilities had different practices and styles of applying camo, so there would likely have been scope for variability among airframes from different assembly lines. This would be further accentuated by the decentralized production of late-war aircraft, with subassemblies (fuselage, wings, tail) being constructed and painted in dispersed localities and being shipped to a central production facility (often in open air) for final assembly.
The matter of colors is also not as straight-forward as it may seem. Main camo top-side colors for late war aircraft are usually given as RLM 81: brown-violet; RLM 82: bright green; and RLM 83: dark green, with pairs of these colors usually being used together. However, recent research has shown that RLM 83, surprisingly, in fact was an underside blue color for Mediterranean aircraft, while 81 and 82 both apparently existed in brownish and greenish versions; for a more detailed discussion of the topic, see:
http://theprofilepaintshop.blogspot.co. ... l/Bf109K-4
For the underside, matters aren’t that simple either. Late war RLM 76 tends to be lighter in color (often quite whitish) than earlier in the war. On top of that, many airframes are documented using either a yellowish or greenish-blue paint on the underside, or parts of it; these colors sometimes receive the spurious designations “RLM 84a” and “RLM 84b”, but in fact, no such color is officially known to have existed. It is generally believed that the yellowish or greenish color resulted from either poor mixing, or poor quality pigments of the RLM 76.
I’ve also had a look at your X-4 missiles and pylons – they look great, but there is a small omission on the pylons: in fact, they should have two small trailing arms into which the guidance wires for the missile are plugged in. The pylons themselves are simply modified ETC 70 racks – the same racks the FW 190F used for carrying 50 kg bombs under wing. I’m sorry for only now coming up with this – I’ve been very busy, and it’s been quite a while since I last visited the site.
In any case, fantastic work, and I’m absolutely looking forward to this!!!
Peter