Yep, still ploughing on down the what if? kits in my stash, this time it’s the Takom 1/72 Silbervogel Suborbital Bomber so called Amerika Bomber. Like the Arado E555 I just finished, this was a proposal and design that would have allowed Germany to bomb the US, but this time with a bomber specifically to use a atomic device. A very nice kit, it comes with two different nose sections with two different cockpits. The first, a raised bubble cockpit canopy, with a single seat cockpit looked good but I felt having a strategic bomber with a single pilot was just plain wrong. If anyone can cite me a strategic bomber with a single crew member then I’ll be jolly surprised, especially one that was supposed to reach the altitides of the SSB before making the attack using an atomic bomb. So instead I opted for the very sleek, and even no futuristic looking flush cockpit cover and it’s two seat cockpit. Other folk have bemoaned the lack of detail in the cockpit, and yes, it is very basic, but honestly,when you have the clar parts installed you can see very little of it, so nicely painted seats will do fine. It’s a simple kit with not that many parts, but they are a perfect fit, and the detailing is awesome. There was zero filler used on this model and every joint is flush. No defensive guns, or any of the usual bits and bobs that hang off aircraft of this era, it is an incredibly sleep and elegant design, and the dimensions are quite something, 39cm long with a wingspan of 20cm. Anyway, a few photos of the unpainted kit, and one beside the E555 for comparison. After all, that was a competing Amerika Bomber design.
Very nice, interesting subject. Are you going for a camouflage or bare metal type finish?
IIRC, wasn’t the Me-264 the “Amerikabomber”?
It is, and while it feels far too futuristic for a WW2 design, (seriously, they could build it now and it would still look up to date) it’s nice to continue the What if? theme. The notional schemes on the instructions gave me a few ideas, the one I chose is a bit of a combination. Black underside with a bit of disruptive black up the sides, which then gives way to light blue, with the customary green blotches. However, where all three colours meet, I hazed it with a stippled green to blend it all together and look less separate. Easier to show when it is finished 
I also finally found the decals, (mistakenly put in the box file stuffed with 1/48 decals rather than 1/72, no surprise, for the scale it’s quite a large sheet because there are five sets of decals for the different versions depicted). The beauty is I can use a combination of decals and haven’t decided which yet.
It was the Amerika Bomber that was actually built but there were several competing Amerika Bomber programmes, (including the E555 I built previously) that were cancelled, going no further than the design stage.
So, with the painting all but complete, a few snaps before I put the decals on. The carrier film was very large, so I’ve had to take scissors to the decals otherwise it would have looked very odd. Still, one thing is for sure, with so many possible versions, if i get the decals wrong I have plenty of back-ups As I said, on the notional paint schemes, the closest to this had a red nose cone, but that just looked wrong, and as far as I could see, no German WW2 aircraft had a colourful forward a section. The propellor, yes, but that’s all. Anyway, this felt better.
And that’s it. Added a few decals, though it was a mix and match affair, some from one scheme plus most from another. I cut away swathes of the carrier film otherwise it would have been very distracting. As usual, a comparison photo with another of my models, this time with the fellow long range German bomber that never was, the Arado E555.
Very cool, nicely finished! What’s next?
Thanks, but it was a tough one to photograph, partly due to the extreme length versus wingspan. Still, it looks good on the shelf. Next up are a few What if? fighters to go with these two, not yet started, and the continuation of a dozen WW2 German afvs, of which five are tanks, (all the way from an E-10 to an E-100) and the rest are half-tracks, trucks and fully tracked vehicles. The tanks are all built, just needing the various camos on top of the customary yellow/sand, the rest are mostly built, just need painting. Oh, and I started a Dragon 1/48 Mistel flying bomb combination too. Bet you regret asking now 
Nope, not at all 
Seems like you have a bunch of interesting projects ahead! Especially the “E” series tanks. Hope to see those when you get back to them.
i like keeping busy, and while I tend to choose one line of models to build at a time, (recently it was the 1/72 what if? tanks and then aircraft), I often have a few others waiting how I left them just to be finished, like the 1/35 afvs. In fact, for a few years I built very little apart from 1/35 tanks, etc. so it made a nice change to build a smaller scale. That I began with the P1000 Ratte, (shown on one of my threads here) that was much larger than any 1/35 kit I’ve built, made the change less marked And yes, I’ll be bothering everyone with photos of the finished kits.
The one that has a FW190 on top of a Ta154? I hope you haven’t got too far into chopping up the Ta154; it wasn’t intended have a shaped-charge warhead fitted, just a blast-frag warhead in the front fuselage (and rear of the cockpit?). It was for use as a Pulkzerstörer, to be launched into U.S. bomber formation to cause it to break up. You may wish to improvise a through-fuselage spar extending into the inner wings to keep them straight, otherwise they can drop and pull the fuselage halves apart.
I have had (for several years, with no progress…) the intent to do a Farnborough '47 collection of Luftwaffe '46 designs as captured examples operated by No.1426 (Enemy Aircraft) Flight RAF (A.K.A “The Rafwaffe”) but mainly in late-war German warpaint with overpainted markings, unlike the Me 410 A-1/U2 in a RAF Prototype paint scheme being peddled to their club members this year…
Cheers,
M
I did know about that, but had already modeled the Revell kit, (same one by all accounts) how you described, (sans the spar into the wings, I never noticed a problem) and really just wanted to make another, you guessed it, What if? kit out of it. I have several what-if? kits in 1/48, (a couple by Amusing Hobby, a couple by Model Collect)so it’ll be a nice addition when I get around to all those. After all, it’s all a bit of make-believe if you think about it, so why not?
I know what you mean with the captured aircraft. I saw a He177 a short while ago that someone had modelled after the one captured and sent to Britain and flown with RAF roundels, the black and white stripes, etc. and it looked great. That I was very familiar with photos of the original plane helped. That Me 410 is a great kit, but I have a lot of time for modern Airfix kits, especially when, like now quite a few of them are on their website in a sale, at least in the UK. The two boxes with 12 kits in will testify Three Meteors, 1 1/48 2 1/72 (the 1/72 kits were free) 2 1/48 Sea Furies, 2 1/72 Blackburn Buccaneers, (Gulf War) 1 Supermarine Swift in 1/72 , 2 Hawker tempests in 1/72, a 1/72 Mitchell and 1 1/48 Vampire.Yes, I’ve officially lost my mind
I lost out! The items I wanted sold out before I was ready to place an order (mainly a 1:72 Gulf War Buccaneer, a Swift, and a Tempest; I don’t normally do 1:48 but the Sea Fury and Spit XVIII were very tempting) and now reality has bitten so I’ll probably not bother. I’m waaay overstocked not only for this lifetime but my next incarnation as well. 
If you are into “What Ifs” and like a bargain, may I bring this to your attention:
RS Models Aircraft kits - RSMI92268 | Hannants
There’s a couple in stock and it might be worth grabbing both as I understand the base kit includes the engine pod for the “A” model’s BMW 003 as well as that for the "B"s JUMO 004…
Cheers,
M
You have to be so fast with some of the sales. I wasn’t even told about the sale, i was just checking the site to see how many flying hours I needed for a kit and there it was. Not to rb salt in the wounds, but I also had a lot on the points passport, (I tend to say it for sales, offers, etc) and by putting in two seperate orders managed to get two of the 1/72 Meteors they’re giving away free rather than one. Trust me, I know how you feel with having too many kits. I keep all the instructions in box folders, (having learned long ago to take them and the decals out of the boes when storing) and at the moment I have about eighteen of the large box folders full, (in full OCD mode, all arranged by scale, country and then the age of the aircraft, tank, ship or whatever). Yes, it’s insane, but how I look at it is it’s like having a library. I don’t know which book I’ll want to read or when, but isn’t it better to have a lot of choices, and not miss out because you don’t have a certain kit and they no longer make it? Plus, I always buy cheap, and, given how the prices of kits has rocketed, they’re worth more now than when I bought them. So why not?
Thanks, a sort of Salamander variant. It’s impossible to keep up to date with all the new kits and manufacturers. Only yesterday I found a half track in 1/35 with a different gun and armour, etc. that I’d totally missed. Now of course I would like that too. As I said, i know it’s insane
It’s actually a completely different beast (prone pilot position, wing-mounted main gear, etc,) but has similarities because of convergent design - top mounted engine mandates a twin tail, and so on.
AZ model produce the He162A plus C and D variants but these are wrong as they were to utilise the B fuselage, whereas the base kit in it’s various boxings includes the butterfly tail and both swept and forward-swept wings as options on the A variant. But being “What If” models I’m happy enough with them. They also do two-seat variants and Argus pulse-jet variants, and it should be possible to build an “E” mixed power variant from the A (with a bit of scratch-building), which existed in reality…
AZ Model Aircraft kits - AZM7835 | Hannants
Cheers,
M
I’ll be honest, there is so many of these kits and the variety of designs that existed that I tend to just build the kit as they present it, no questions. There are some that I know something about, but again, you tend to find a lot of these what-if? kits being influenced by the design of another aircraft/project so they come up with a whole new design that never really existed, or take it forward in ways that were never imagined ir even needed. The Model Collect kits in 1/35 especially are like this, starting out with the reasonable E-75 and E-50, albeit some stylised, but then moving forward with kits like their E-60 series, that resemble no designs I know of, but which you can see other real or projected fighting vehicles being mimicked as part of their design. Their most outlandish kits, again a twin gun E-60 and the very similar E-100 are sheer fantasy, but are they fun to build, absolutely. Building a lot of sci-fi kits in my life, I can appreciate the fictional, the real and yes, like these aircraft you’ve mentioned, somewhere in between. Because yes, they do look good. If only we all had infinite space t display them in, and infinite time to build them. Ah well, back to realty