The Gotha Go 229 was derived from the Horten IX. The Horten Brothers had been working on flying wings since the 30's and this aircraft was the closest to entering service when the war ended. Construction of the Horten IX V2 began in 1943 and followed the 1000³ design concept: carry 1000kg of bombs at 1000kph with penetration range of 1000km. The Ho-229 was made of wood to save weight and because wood was not a strategic material and was painted with radar absorbing paint.
The first flight of the Ho-IX V2 occurred in February 1945 and the aircraft showed great promise. It later crashed on landing when one of the two engines failed. In spite of having only 2 hours flying time, production was ordered to begin immediately at the Gotha plant and the official designation was changed to Go-229.
I built my G0-229 from the Dragon kit. As far as the kit goes, I have the proverbial good news/bad news for you. The good news is that you can now have a Go-229 in your collection, and for that we have to thank Dragon. The bad news is it's one rather difficult kit to build. Primarily in the fit department anyway. Nothing seemed to fit together or match up, but if you're willing to take the time and effort required and contain your temper, you'll no doubt achieve a fine result in the end. I'm certainly glad I didn't trash this project.
The decals were ok, and I used a little "modeller's license" and added ID numbers to the nose from an old Hobbycraft 109. The swastikas came from Microscale. The kit was assembled with Tenax (about half a bottle of it!) and painted with Modelmaster paints. Micro-set and -sol were used on the decals. The bad news for me is that every time I look at the plane, I'm reminded that I simply must have a single-seat version in my collection, and building it is something I'm not looking forward to!
