Today I want to show you my latest finished model, the Heinkel He 219 A-7 from Tamiya, as usual in 1/48 …
… the He 219 was a heavily armed german twin engined night fighter, developed in 1942. The first test flight took place on the 6. November 1942. It was the first aircraft of the Luftwaffe which had ejection seats for the crew and it was also one of the first with a tricycle landing gear. The performance of the He 219 was far better than of the older Bf 110 and so production was ordered and started early in 1943. In the night of the 11./12. June 1943 famous night fighter ace Major Werner Streib with his navigator took off from Venlo/Netherlands with a pre-production model for a first combat flight and within 90 minutes he shot down 5 RAF Lancaster bombers. On return to base he crash landed the aircraft because of a failure of the airbrakes and the plane broke into pieces. The crew escaped unhurt. The sole unit to use the He 219 was the
Nachtjagdgeschwader (NJG) 1. A total of less than 300 planes were manufactured, mainly at the Heinkel factory near Rostock but also in Vienna. The He 219 A-7 was powered by two 12 cylinder Daimler-Benz DB 603 G liquid cooled piston engines with 1900 hp each which gave the aircraft a speed of 670 km/h at 7.000 meters. It had a range of over 1500 kilometers and a service ceiling of 12.700 meters. The A-7 variant was usually armed with 2 x 20 mm MG 151/20 guns in the wing roots with 400 rounds each and 2 x 20 mm MG 151/20 in a fairing under the fuselage with 500 rounds each plus 2 x 30 mm MK 108 cannons as so called
“Schräge Musik” in the rear upper fuselage with 100 rounds each. The armamant differed from variant to variant and there were many of them. Today there are at least two He 219 still existing. One is unrestored on display in Denmark, it was found about 10 years ago in the Skagerrak off the North Coast. The other fuselage is on display at the Udvar-Hazy-Museum near Washington DC. When I visited the Garber Restauration Facilities in 2002 the plane was still under restauration. It was an amazing sight for me …
… I have build the He 219 A-7 “+ TH” of I./NJG 1, based on the island of Sylt in Northern Germany in April/May 1945. Sorry, but I found no informations about the crew or the fate of the plane …
… the kit is already an oldie from the 1990’s but the fitting of all parts is still perfect. There is no need for putty, sanding is only modestly necessary. Typical Tamiya quality! Because this model has a tricycle landing gear, a lot of weight is needed, not to have a tail sitter. So with the kit comes a large metal part where the cockpit sits in. It has a weight of 55-60 grams. There’s no need for additional weight. The kit is build completely out of box, I only used the brass made FuG 220 Lichtenstein radar antennas from Modellbau Schatton. These parts are a lot finer than the parts from the kit. But the brass parts are only for the front, the rear warning radar parts are from the kit. The He 219 should be build and painted in 3 sections (right wing, fuselage, left wing) and then glued together. That makes everything easier and if you have followed my build blog you know that I did just that …
… for the painting I have used a variety of brands here. The cockpit was painted again with Revell 77 Dust Grey (close to RLM 66), the wheel wells are painted with Revell 45 Light Olive (close to RLM 02), Black is Revell 302, the upper camo is painted with Vallejo 71046 RLM 76 and the grey blotches are painted with Gunze H 69 RLM 75. Final coating was again made with Clear Matt Varnish from Marabu. All decals are taken from the kit, except the swastikas. There are no stencils on the decal sheet for this kit. Tamiya offers 2 versions, this is the more “colourful” one. As usual my model is not weathered at all. With a length of over 35 cm and a wing span of nearly 39 cm it’s quite a big bird and because of the metal cockpit it’s indeed a “heavy” fighter. That all would cause transport problems, so I have decided not to show the model on future expos, only here on Aeroscale and of course in my permanent show at home. So, if you’re in Germany after Covid 19 times, just give me a yell and come around! To give you an impression of the size I have put a 1 Euro coin on the fuselage here. The coin has a diameter of 23 mm if you’re not used to the size of our coins. On the last photo you can see the MK 108
“Schräge Musik” how it was built in the fuselage. No need to paint it, I just opened the muzzles …
So, again I say “Vielen Dank” for stepping in and having a look at the latest addition to my aviation museum. Hope, you’ve enjoyed it!
Happy modelling!
Torsten