Me 262 V-3

[Second Air Force]

Now that I've found the source for decals, it's time to start my 1/48 Me 262 prototype. I'll be building PC+UC, the third machine built and first to fly with turbine power only.

The beautiful Tamiya kit will be the basis for this conversion:

Me 262 V-3

It's actually a shame to cut up this wonderful kit that comes with a full gun bay and so many other fine details. Most of the fine parts will end up in the spares bin and everything I use will be modified in some way or other.

The first item on the agenda is moving the landing gear openings in the wing. The V-3 was equipped with conventional landing gear so the mains were located much further forward than the tricycle version. It took a bit of filing to fit the gear doors and then they were securely glued in place. Next was an application of filler:

Me 262 V-3

Me 262 V-3

Second item tackled was the beginning of modification to the engine nacelles. The very early machines had quite different cowlings. This entailed carefully filing away the fillet fairing on each nacelle half where they meet the lower wing. Also more filing and sanding to remove the aft tailcone fairing and filler in the turbine section cooling vents. This photo is poor but shows the beginnings of these modifications next to an untouched half:

Me 262 V-3

More updates as things move forward......

[No.1]

Great one mate

[Sall]

This will be excellent!!

[Second Air Force]

Thank you friends!

Next step after sanding the center section was to lay out the location of new landing gear openings. These dimensions I took from a set of Arthur Bentley drawings I've had for twenty years or more. (I've been planning to build a tailwheel 262 for a  l o n g  time! )

Me 262 V-3

After fine-tuning the new lines the next thing was to cut open the gear wells. I was careful to leave the center "spine" between the two openings to provide a little extra strength to the center section during all the modifications. The new gear doors will affix to this bar during final assembly:

Me 262 V-3

Just for my own benefit I then dry-fitted the wing and fuselage. On the left wing between the engine and fuselage you can see a black mark where the leading edge will soon be modified:

Me 262 V-3

[Sall]

 

[Second Air Force]

Okay, a few more minutes were available between chores, and I was inspired to continue, so here are more wing-mod photos.......

First up is the dismembering of the right leading edge. First I cut out the rounded portions on an angle and set them aside. Then another angled cut was made in the wing panels so as to remove the needed plastic:

Me 262 V-3

Then is was a fairly simple matter to file and trim the new joint to achieve a correct sweepback (or lack of it, actually) by laying the wing on my blueprint. Next the leading edges were glued in place and test fitting could start:

Me 262 V-3

Now another issue comes along, removing the fairing on the fuselage halves. In the first photo you see the excess fairing material that would have mated with the swept wing. In the second photo I've carefully filed and sanded this material away to mate with the new wing position. Once all the modifications are complete this will be final sanded and rescribed to represent the fairing seam:

Me 262 V-3

Me 262 V-3

[Sall]

Great job!! I like it!!

[Second Air Force]

Thanks, Sall!

A bit more progress while having morning coffee, this time with landing gear internal structure:

 First was to fabricate the sides of the strut well from styrene sheet and strip. Easy enough since this is a simple box with a few stiffeners. Also I added the attaching bracket for the retract actuator and the upper strut trunnion pivot where the strut will attach later:

Me 262 V-3

After scratching these items together, another fit-check. I really like the interior detail provided by Tamiya, accurately representing the cockpit tub and fuselage stringers and formers.

Me 262 V-3

After this was all adjusted and fitted I sprayed the interior of the wing with RLM 02. Not too long now and the wing panels can be assembled:

Me 262 V-3

[No.1]

Gooooooooooood

[Sall]

I like this a lot!!

[Second Air Force]

A small modification had to be accomplished on the four flaps. The prototype machines had flap track covers that were fixed to the wing upper surface. On the production machines (and this kit) the flap-to-wing joint is a straight line, while on the V-3 there are two cutouts on each flap. This was easy enough to replicate by filling the panel lines at the track covers and then scribing the covers onto the flap surface. These are visible and you can see a little of the pink putty where the panel lines were removed:

Me 262 V-3

Next will be similar changes to the rudder and elevators, in that case to remove the mass-balances of the production ships.

[No.1]

Good attention to the details

[Second Air Force]

More little changes, firstly on the aileron trim tabs. These were located at the very inboard end of the aileron on the prototypes and moved outboard a small amount during production. Simply a little filler on part of the surface and rescribing fixes this. While waiting for the filler to dry I cut out the skins for each landing gear door segment and filled the gun ports and fairings on the fuselage panels.

Me 262 V-3

[No.1]

Are you going to make structure inside landing gear doors?

[Second Air Force]

Yes, pretty much as Messerschmitt built the originals, with a stiffening structure on the inside.