Amtech Ta 183 in 1/48 scale

[matrixone]

This is one of my Ta 183 kits that I have started, this will be a quick build and the goal for this model is to make it look like a war weary machine that looks like its in need of a total rebuild.
The model will get some extreme paint fading and chipping on the metal fuselage while the wooden wings will have so much wear and tear of the paint on the wing roots that some of the wood will be exposed.

The first dozen or so Ta 183's were built with the Junkers Jumo 004B engine as the power plant since the Heinkel He S 011 was not delivered in time when production of the Ta 183 started and the Jumo 004 powered Ta 183's were known as the Ta 183A-1 and that is the version I will be building.

The box top...

Here is the very first bit of work done on this one.

Matrixone

 

[moon puppy]

Think the box top is stretching it a bit ain't it Les? The Mig 15? I know Tank went to Argentina and developed this further for their use but would you agree with it being the basis of the Mig15?

Great looking start BTW..

 

[lupanzer]

Think the box top is stretching it a bit ain't it Les? The Mig 15? I know Tank went to Argentina and developed this further for their use but would you agree with it being the basis of the Mig15?

Great looking start BTW..

:hmmm... is it true ?

Dear Les.

Very nice start!...following with attention

Luiz.

 

[matrixone]

Bob,
In no way is the Mig 15 based on the Ta 183, what was printed on the Amtech box top was wishful thinking and a way to sell kits, but to be fair the Ta 183 influenced the Russian designers and gave them plenty of ideas for producing high speed jet fighters like the Mig 15.

There was actually a lot more work done on the Ta 183 project than first thought, some of the post war American reports on the state of captured material from the Luftwaffe had the reports on the Ta 152 and Ta 183 lumped together, what I remember reading about the Ta 183 in some of the reports concerned stress testing of the wooden wing spars. There was other material related to the Ta 183 but could not quite make out the print on the copies of those files. Like the Russians, the USAAF also had an interest in the Ta 183 but at that time American aircraft designers were ahead of the Russians in jet powered aircraft designs so the Ta 183 was not studied as closely by them.

Matrixone

 

[Dusan]

Very nice :coolio I have old PM kit on my shelf ... This one is great looking so

All the best!
Dusan.

 

[razordws]

Another great subject Less!

 

[Skinny_Mike]

Awesome choice. I'll be watching Les - your builds are always so inspiring!

Thanks for sharing!

Mike
:drinks

 

[jknaus]

James

 

[matrixone]

Thanks very much guys!

One more interesting thing about the Ta 183...shortly after the war ended there was a lot of interest by the British government in the Ta 183 and there were serious plans to commission the Germans to build one so it could be flight tested by the RAF. :woohoo: But sadly severe budget cutting in the post war era scrapped those plans, this is a shame because the chief designer of the Ta 183 Hans Multhopp was already being detained by the British and under his direction a good flyable airplane might have been built.
Kurt Tank went to Argentina and tried to build a modified version of the Ta 183 but it was not a success, Hans Multhopp had a better understanding of aerodynamics needed for high speed aircraft and without this knowledge Kurt Tank's version of the Ta 183 turned out to be a pilot killer and far from a useful combat aircraft.

The Amtech kit is one of the easiest to build aircraft kits I have ever worked with, not only is the kit well designed but the decal sheet included in it is as good or better than aftermarket decal sheets. This is quite a feat for a new modeling company in their first attempt at bringing a kit into the marketplace.
As good as this kit is there is one area that needs to be addressed, the main landing gear legs are waaay too long. If built O.O.B. the finished model will sit with the nose level or even a degree or two downward and this is wrong, in actual wartime Focke-Wulf drawings of the Ta 183 the nose is shown to be at a nose high stance when on the ground (similar to the Ta 154), no doubt Amtech was aware of this and I believe the kit was designed as it was to make it easier for modelers to get the model to balance properly at the expense of a slightly inaccurate looking Ta 183.
An easy way to deal with the overly long gear legs is to cut them in half and remove a section and then re-glue them.
The image below shows how much I shortened one of the gear legs, the one on the left has been shortened and the one on the right is as it looks O.O.B.

Another way to deal with the too long gear legs is to use wheels from a Tamiya Fw 190A-8/F-8 kit...the main wheels from the Amtech kit are oversized and look nothing like wheels seen on other late war aircraft like the Ta 152 series.

Matrixone

 

[matrixone]

I finished the modification of the main landing gear legs and have glued the fuselage and wing halves together.
The pictures below show a mock up with the tail plane, wings, and landing gear, stuck together with tape and ticky-tak to confirm that I have enough weight in the nose to prevent this one from being a tail sitter.

Below are the goofy looking main wheels provided in the Amtech kit and the resin replacements from True Details that I will be using. The kits wheels are nothing like anything used on Focke-Wulfs and also have a diamond tread similar to those seen on Allied aircraft, I know this is a what-if aircraft but why include such bizarre looking wheels. :idonno
I like the True Detail wheels because they are flattened and have the sides bulged to represent some weight being put on them...they are perfect for this model since it is supposed to be a totally worn out looking aircraft and these wheels will help this effect.

Matrixone

 

[moon puppy]

Those wheels are major improvement Les.

 

[lupanzer]

Nice...

Luiz.

 

[phantom II]

This is probably the reason for those wheels....

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[matrixone]

Thanks guys!
Everything on this kit has gone well (so far) I need to smooth out the seam lines on the fuselage and wings before I can do too much more on it and I needed to do some airbrushing on another model today so no sanding work has been done lately. Thursday morning I will be doing a lot of sanding, the Ta 183, Bf 209, and the two Do 335s need some work with sandpaper.

Christian,
The wheel hubs on the Me P1101 in your picture are standard late model Bf 109 wheel hubs but do look very different since they are in NMF and not the usual black finish. The tires are no doubt different and IIRC Bell used American replacement tires since the original German tires were in horrible shape and could not be repaired.
Those wheels in the Amtech kit are just flat out strange...instead of going through the expense and trouble of machining those odd looking wheels Amtech would have been far better off going with standard Fw 190 late war wheels, they would have not been any cheaper to machine for making the molds but would have been easier to copy from the mass of research and photographs available.

Matrixone

 

[moon puppy]

I look at that picture and think that's made in the US, reading your comment Les, would that had been at the Bell plant?

 

[matrixone]

Bob,
That photograph of the Me P1101 was taken in the U.S.A. most likely at one of the Bell Aircraft facilities, besides the replacement tires notice the outlines of the 50 caliber machine guns affixed to the forward fuselage...Bell had plans to build the Me P1101 and try to develop it into a usable fighter aircraft and hopefully get a contract from the U.S.A.A.F. The unfinished Me P1101 V-1 that was captured near the end of the war was brought to the U.S.A. and Bell wanted to complete the work on the V-1 and do some flight tests with it but there was too much damage done to the airframe so it was used instead for engine and armament mock ups. Bell did make a modified version of the Me P1101 and it was better known as the X-5 swing wing test plane.

Matrixone

 

[matrixone]

The Ta 183 is ready for some paint. It will be getting the fuselage sprayed gloss black followed by Testors Chrome silver for the NMF.

After the NMF is dry I plan on using the salt weathering technique to add the extensive paint chipping I want for this model.

Matrixone

 

[phantom II]

Cheers, Christian B)

 

[lupanzer]

...I will never use this technique (salt) to make chipping...I will follow with full interest

Best!

Luiz

 

[matrixone]

Luiz,
Yes I will be using the salt weathering technique on this one and maybe use a little tape also to add the extreme paint chipping I want for this model. I am after a tattered and worn out effect for this one so much so that it looks to be ready for the scrap yard (or to be recycled).

The fuselage has been painted with a lite coat of gloss black followed by a thin coat of Chrome Silver...of course the canopy was first sprayed with RLM 66 black gray.

The top of the wings were painted with a wood grain effect because I want the camouflage paint to have the appearance of it being worn off near the wing roots exposing the wings wooden construction. I will be adding a clear coat before I spray on the camouflage colors so when I sand off some of the paint I won't be sanding off the wood grain effect too.

Matrixone