REVELL 1:72 MESSERSCHMITT ME 262A-1A

Reviewer: Nick Hall  (dixhall@hotmail.com)

The Me 262 has the recognition of becoming the first jet aircraft to attain service status (it was not the first jet fighter to fly) in 1944.  The Me 262A-1a was the first series production model and was used as a single seater day fighter, known semi-officially as the Schwalbe (Swallow).  It carried an armament of four 30-mm cannon and was arguably the most formidable warplane to attain service status in WW2, launching a new era in aerial warfare.  Although it required a large runway length and was a bit underpowered, it was renowned as a pilot's aeroplane and offered a marked speed over any predecessor.  It's undercomings included manoeuvrability and in spite of its graceful and attractiveness, it proved relatively easy to shoot down once counter-tactics were employed, and the initial fear in opponents overcome.

This Me 262 is packaged in a small Revell boxing and is clearly manufactured under their new tooling policy.  It contains a wealth of external panel line detail that is finely recessed into the mouldings.  There are 55 injection moulded parts in total plus 3 clear.  The instruction sheet is in the form of three folded sheets giving the usual history, exploded assembly views and alternative colour examples, and also includes two three-view drawings and photograph of the completed model.  

Construction starts with the cockpit and this contains exquisite detail - seat, side panels, tub unit, stick, etc.  This sits nicely into the allocated space interior of the fuselage half.  The halves go together very well but sufficient weight is recommended in the nose or it will become a tailsitter in completed form.   The wings construct easily and the engine mounting is quite straightforward, but adjoining the wing roots to the fuselage proved to be a bit tight and some attention is needed here to get a decent fit.  The kit allows for optional fuel tanks or rocket assemblies to be attached to two underfuselage pylons but I have no reference material that indicates these were included on the Me 262A-1a.  I am aware that the nightfighter variants carried fuel tanks/rockets so I am not sure whether this depiction on a day-fighter is actually correct.  Anyway, I decided to leave them off because of this and I noted that the holes need to be enlarged before joining the fuselage halves if you were to choose to attach them.  Some other 'filled' holes are evident on the plastic and this is no doubt for the Revell Me 262B version recently released.

The rest of the construction was very straightforward with only the usual care needed to position parts correctly.  Once completed the kit allows for two options to be reproduced.  Essentially they are both the same in colour, except one has more pronounced mottling than the other.  RLM 81 (Braunviolett) and RLM 82 (Dunkelgrun) are called for on upper surface detail, mottling done in the latter RLM 82, and for the undersides RLM 76 (Lichtblau) is suggested.  A couple of the undersurface panels as well as the intake cowlings were instructed to be painted in an aluminium finish, and this seemed a bit odd when done on the finished product.  I ended up redoing these in their RLM colours.

A plethora of decals are supplied in the kit and they are finished in Matt appearance.  They are also easily seen to be thin and because of the dark RLM colours are clearly going to be hard to see against the finish.  Naturally, no swastikas are included so these will need to be obtained from another source.  I ended up using some Propagatem aftermarket decals purchased elsewhere that contained a comprehensive array of stenciling and this proved to be fine.

Accuracy overall can't really be flawed in my opinion - it matches up very well to my reference material other than the fuselage attachment points spoken about above.  This was an excellent kit and is worth the value and I would have no qualms in recommending it very highly to anyone.  My hat goes off to Revell with their new tooling policy that has produced this ripper of a kit.

Related In-the-box Reviews:  MPM 1/72 Nakajima Kikka 

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Obviously image credit goes to Ron:  this is a very nice example of a version the kit reproduces