Building the Me-168 Geier

Okay, so I finished building my one year build, the fictional Fi-203. I was in a Luft '46 mood, and I had to think of what I wanted to build next. The bulk of the kits I have (save my prized Revell Germany Flitzer and BV P.194) are all pretty conventional. I've got an Me-262, a few Blitzes, an Uhu, a Stuka and a Salamander. I also have two Komets, the great Academy one and an old, not-so-great Heller one.

I decided to build the 1/72 Heller Komet (No. 237). Once, however, I got it out of the box, I began to think of ways to convert it to something even more unconventional. A visit to Luft46.com revealed there were several projects to create jets based on the Komet's wings and overall shape, and this got me thinking...

Thus, from my addled brain sprung what I call the Me-168 Geier (Vulture). As with my Fi-203 article, I'll first outline the build up of the kit, and then give a little fictional history about the aircraft.

Start Your Engine:

With the engine choice made, I had to find a way to get it air. I cut bigger holes in the body, starting with the rear windows, and hoped this would be enough. It wasn't. I knew there was no way air would be drawn in by flush intakes like this. I needed ducts. I found them in the halves of the 1,000 pound bombs that came with the old (and horrifyingly awful) Lindberg F-104. Using bomb halves with the noses cut off, I found I could make nice tapering inlet ducts that were about the right size.

A bit of sanding to make the ducts smaller was needed, and so was some Milliput to fair the ducts into the body, near the engine. I also decided that the flat-frontedness of the ducts didn't look right, and carved back the leading edge. I originally considered putting the compressor face that goes with the jetpipe inside the fuselage, so you could see it when you looked in the intake, but it turned out you COULDN'T see it. I figured I'd save it for a better use. (This use, as it turns out, is to give my FROG He-162 Salamander a compressor face. It fits great!)

Technical Considerations:

The problem with substituting the Walter HWK-509A-2 rocket engine with the Jumo 004B engine is that the Jumo is a lot bigger, so there wouldn't be much place in the fuselage for fuel. I didn't have much room to add bulges for extra fuel on the body and still clear the landing gear trolley, so I decided that drop tanks were the best solution. I normally avoid using drop tanks, because frankly the cheese me off. (Why waste good pylon space that can hold weapons with fuel?? Such a waste.)

I had the two drop tanks from my original Blitz still kicking around, and I found that they were the perfect size. I thus bored two holes in the Komet's wings and sanded the tank pylons so they'd better match the wings' curvature. I also decided to move the cannons outboard, from the wing root to the middle of the wing, so that gun gas wouldn't get ingested by the engine. I bored two holes to line up with the bulges that cover the wing fuel tank connecting pipes on a normal Komet. They looked like excellent gun breech bulges, and that's what they are now.

I also shortened the tailwheel so that the original faired one could fit under the engine, but it didn't extend all the way to the end of the engine. It would be pretty hot, and I didn't want the tailwheel burning up in flight.

Getting My Build On:

Once I had these technical issues licked, I began my assembly. The cockpit on the Heller Komet is basic at best, with a poorly molded instrument panel, a stick and two rudder pedals. The seat, surprisingly, is nicely shaped, although a bit incorrect. Normally, there are openings beside the headrest for the pilot to look through the rear windows. Since these were now intakes, I had to block these openings off. I did this by carving small pieces of balsa wood to fit in the openings. As an extra bonus, I also found that they make nice splitter plates at the front of the intake! With the cockpit tub (as it was) installed, the halves of the Komet were glued together using Testors liquid cement. The wings were also assembled at this point, but they wouldn't be attached until much later.

Once the body was dry, I cyanoacrylated (CAed) the jet exhaust on. I then applied a good deal of Milliput to the area where the engine and the body join, so that I could smoothly fair in the new exhaust. It turns out that I was a little bit overzealous with the Milliput, and could have gotten away with less around the engine. Surprisingly, there was very little needed in the way of seam filling. The parts of the Heller Komet that I used actually fit together very well, and the Testors liquid cement did a good job melting them together.

Obviously, the next job was to sand the seams smooth and shape the Milliput. This was done in surprisingly short order, and went well the first time. To fill some small gaps left behind I used the CA, which, when hardened, is just as tough to sand (if not tougher) than Milliput. Once the body was finished, I added the tailwheel, although I had to shorten it by about a quarter of an inch or so first. The fit was quite poor, even after re-contouring it to fit the new jetpipe, so lots of CA was dumped in there to fill things up.

The landing gear cradle was built stock, and the pitot tube was relocated from midway along the wing to the nose. I figured that with a jet engine on board, the Me-168 wouldn't need the wind-powered generator that is driven by the small prop on the nose of a conventional Komet. This left the wing free for the guns, and I found that the barrels provided in the Heller kit would be fine.

Of course, this was before I cut one off the sprue and it disappeared for good. Thus, I had find new gun barrels. I toyed with the idea of just leaving the holes, but I figured that there wouldn't be room for a cannon with any kind of barrel in there. Thankfully, I still had the rear warning aerials for the FuG 220 that came with my AMT Ju-88G kit. I just cut two of these dipoles down to make the cannons I wanted. When I was done, I just painted the fronts black.

Painting:

I wanted to do the -168 in a late-war spottle camouflage. I figured at first I'd do a light green/dark green scheme, as seen on the Luft Art image of the He-1078C project on Luft '46. However, this was a little too close to the Fi-203, and I figured it would be boring. One thing I love about Luftwaffe planes is their propensity towards using purples. Thus, I figured a medium green/purple-brown scheme would be appropriate.

First, though, I mixed up a colour for the underside. I know all books say that Luftwaffe planes have light blue undersides. Restored planes have this, and model painting guides say it is so, but the little colour footage of Luftwaffe aircraft I've seen never seem to bear this out. However, I wanted the -168 to look 'professionally over-restored,' basically to look the way people think it should look. Thus, I came up with a very nice light blue colour, made up of Tamiya XF-2 Flat White, XF-20 Medium Grey, XF-23 Light Blue and X-14 Sky Blue. The underside and the tanks were painted in this colour.

Before painting, I decided I'd better follow the sage advice of my fellow IPMS members and primer the whole plane. I used Mr. Surfacer 1000, and it made a huge difference. The rest of the paint was airbrushed on without a hitch. I remain in awe of how much difference the primer makes: the paint that I applied remained firmly attached to the plane and was quite resistant to scratching. This is a nice change from last time, when the paint pulled off in sheets.

Decals and Finishing:

With the camouflage on, I applied 4 coats of Future to the plane. I then went on a decal hunt. I have some aftermarket Allmark Decals swastikas, which I used on the 'tail.' The wing crosses, Werke Number and the body side codes on the intake trunks are the actual Heller decals, which were quite yellowed. Thankfully it doesn't show over the camouflage. The underside wing crosses are also the original Hellers, although they were carefully trimmed to remove the yellow edges.

Additional warning labels were gleaned from the Academy Me-109 G-14 as well as a particularly well-endowed sheet of Allmark Decals for Bf-109s from the Battle of Britain era. This same decal sheet yielded the blue/white fuel filler rings on the drop tanks. The nose art, which is impossible to see in the photos, is a knight on a rearing horse. This came from a sheet of ESCI decals which were quite yellowed, and which had to be glued on with Future.

Once the decals were on and dry, a final coat of future was applied to the plane. However, the wing crosses proved to be very 'absorbent', and about 4 extra coats were needed on them to bring them up to the luster of the rest of the -168.

The final touch was the application of Microscale Microflat flat coat. Failing to heed my own experience, I shook the jar of Microflat and put some in the paint cup of my airbrush. Once I started applying the coat, however, I noticed that the plane wasn't getting any flatter! I had forgotten to stir up EVERY LAST BIT of that sludge on the bottom. Once I corrected this, the Microflat gave its patented awesome performance.

The cockpit canopy, armoured glass and other fiddly bits (cannons, radio aerial and pitot tube) were added to the model once flatting was completed. I really hate the long whip-type aerial associated with the FuG 16zy radio set, normally located to the rear of the canopy, so I left it off. I also found the FuG 25a aerial for under the wing to be too thick and long, so I replaced it with another piece of FuG 220 dipole.

And, that's all there was to this kit. Fit, as it was, was actually very good, and the bulk of the work involved cutting away existing plastic and making parts that weren't supposed to go together look like they did! I am very pleased with the result, and am fairly certain that, like my Fi-203, my Me-168 Geier is the only one like it in the world. Unless you are crazy enough to try and emulate it, that is!

Operational History of the Me-168

Please note that the following is FICTIONAL. There never was an aircraft called the Me-168, and to my knowledge no such design was ever put forward. I am a sci-fi fan, and thus I enjoy fictional histories. This kit gives me a chance to both build a coolly fictional yet plausible model while also allowing me to indulge in creating a bit of alternate history.

Understand that this is NOT intended to be a revision of any true, WWII history. It is not intended to re-write any of the facts or refute any of the known events that transpired in the dark days from 1939-1945. If you believe this write up instead of the many excellent texts on the Luftwaffe or WW II, you do so at your peril. The standard disclaimer having been given, here we go:

As the war in the air over Germany became more and more desperate, a number of ambitious programs were started in order to create a new force of fighters that could drive the Allied bombers from the skies. Some of these programs included the Volksjaeger program that spawned the He-162 Salamander and the 'Jaegernotprogram' that resulted in a number of quickly designed, simple jet fighters.

The goal of the Jaegernotprogram, or 'emergency fighter program' was to create a new jet fighter that would be simple to assemble, easy to fly and cheap to make. One entry was the He-1078C, which was a stubby fuselage mated with long swept wings, ending in a sharply downturned rudder/winglet combination. This design was found to be unsatisfactory, however. As far as small and simple, the Messerschmitt company had a number of designs on the drawing board that were jet-powered derivatives of the famous/infamous Komet rocket interceptor (the Li P.15 and Li P.20). It was felt that the Komet's excellent aerodynamics would lend themselves beautifully to jet conversion, and these designs were presented to the RLM.

However, as time for the Reich appeared to be running short, the RLM ordered Messerschmitt to take a more direct approach to solving the problem, and to use as much of the Komet's structure and fabrication network as possible. The result was a decision to mount the Jumo 004 engine in the fuselage in place of the Walter rocket, and to make modifications to the structure as required.

The first iteration of what was called the Me-168 project was a very linear descendant of the Komet, and in fact was almost identical, except for the stubbier rear fuselage, and elephant ear intakes on the sides of the body, immediately aft of the cockpit. Wind tunnel tests showed that aerodynamics were not severely compromised by the shift in weight and the addition of the intakes. However, an engineer who had heard of the Horten brothers' flying wings suggested doing away with the drag inducing vertical tail as well. Trials with the wind tunnel model thus modified were carried out, and no significant issues were found with the change. Thus the decision was made to finalize the design without the tail. The RLM accepted the design in December 1945.

The Me-168 V0 prototype was converted from a production Me-163B airframe and was ready in just 20 days from the start of conversion. Due to a lack of fuel space in the now mostly engine filled fuselage, twin drop tanks were fitted near the body. These came from the Ar-234 Blitz bomber. The
trolley/skid landing system of the Komet was retained for the sake of simplicity and expedience, and there were almost no changes to the cockpit, except for the removal of the rear windows. Armament originally consisted of two 30mm MK 108 cannons at midspan, but this was changed to two MG 151 20mm to save weight and room. It was also felt that the cannon's higher rate of fire would result in a higher number of hits per unit firing time.

The first flight took place on January 26, 1946, and was a success. There was little to change in the design, and production was authorized in the beginning of February. The first aircraft were ready for service at the end of February; this rapid production being facilitated by the great number of parts that could be taken directly from Komet production lines or scavenged from operational Komets.

The first squadrons to operate the Geier consisted of pilots drawn from Komet squadrons, mostly former members of JG 400. These men were only too happy to bid the potentially lethal Komet a final farewell, and began training on the new plane on Feb 27, 1946. Because the handling of the Geier was so similar to the Komet, conversion training was very quick. Operations of the new JG 468 began on March 17, 1946, and the first kill was made two days later. Within a week, the pilots had proven the soundness of the plane's design and had developed effective tactics for attacking the bomber stream.

Standard operational doctrine stated that the Me-168s would take off and climb to an altitude higher than the bombers, and orbit with engines throttled back, waiting for them to arrive. (This led to the official nickname Geier, meaning vulture. The popular name was "Kroete" meaning toad, a testament to the dark colour and lumpy shape of the Me-168.) The -168s would then dive through the formation, attacking both bombers and escorts as possible.

The maneuverability of the Geier, even with its drop tanks, was very good, and it proved a very difficult adversary for the P-51s escorting the bombers. Often the Mustangs would break to deal with the Geiers, leaving the bombers open for slashing attacks from either the Me-262 or even 'conventional' Komets. When the mission was done, the Geiers would retreat to cover the landing fields for the Me-262s. The endurance conveyed on the Geier by its glider heritage was greater than that of any other German jet fighter, and allowed it to perform airfield guarding missions even after its dogfighting was done.

The Me-168 was so effective, easy to fly and easy to build that it managed to make a difference in the war. After losses began to mount, the RAF was forced to send Gloster Meteors to the front to try and swat the little egg-shaped fighters, which had earned the Allied nickname 'horsefly.' Even USAAF P-80s were dispatched to deal with the menace provided by the Geier and later German jets, Pfeils and Ta-152Hs.

Geiers were also tasked with escorting bomber groups (comprised mostly of Ju-88s and Ar-234s), their relatively long range making them ideal for the role. A special squadron of Me-168s, JG 991, was formed in June 1946, expressly for the purpose of escorting nuclear armed He-177s to targets in
Belgium, France and the western USSR. These planes could be identified by their longer, slimmer drop tanks and their white anti-flash undersides.

Over 700 had been produced (with around 450 entering service) by the time the war ended in August, 1946, and they had destroyed over 300 Allied aircraft, for a loss of roughly the same of their own numbers.