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Daimler Benz Project " F "
AV RESINS 1/72 AUD $31

William Moore - 23/10/96


The DBF as I now call it was basically an enlarged version of the manned V-1 in terms of concept being 12.96 m long & 9.0 m wide by 3.02 m high compared to 7.9 m X 5.3 m X 1.4m . The basic mission was the same - guide a manned bomb to a target then abandon ship . The target was obviously intended to be a pinpoint one of high value e.g. bridges ships etc. If you get a chance to read P.W. Stahl's book on KG 200 then you will see this idea is great in theory but difficult in practice and during the war Hitler himself ended up putting the kibosh on this idea which was attractive to many .Major difficulties in the V-1 were it's slow speed ( 650 km/h ) hence why Spitfire etc. were able to fly alongside and waggle the wings to cause them to crash and it's small 850 kg warhead both theoretically rectified in the DBF with its speed of 1230 km/h and 3000 kg warhead in a much heavier vehicle , 10 270 kg vs 2180 kg . Aiming was always a problem for even a manned V-1 against small targets at diving speeds and would have been even more so at the higher speeds of the DBF. The major difference to the manned V-1 apart from its size was the method of escape as illustrated above which would have allowed a greater chance of survival for the pilot , at least he wasn't going to hit the engine inlet on the way out but I wonder if he would have had enough time to escape at the end.

12/10/96 The story so far :- well this kit is nearly finished and up until 3 days ago I thought this kit wasn't too bad . The kit is a typical resin one in that the number of parts is fairly low but those used to resin will know this is usually made up for by the extra work involved in getting those parts to look right and fit together. On opening the box you see your diagram and notice it only shows what it should look like at the end but with so few parts this is a minor quibble. I decided to start with the two body halves which are quite long and unfortunately not always straight and flat on the meeting surfaces , after a bit of sanding I joined these with superglue and found that it was time to break out the Milliput for where the parts didn't meet but especially at the tail at the bottom . Quite a bit of sanding and Milliputing later I had a reasonable body which I then rescribed some of the panel lines on. These are trenches which you will have to put up with and as the scribing on each half will not meet at all points you must try for a best fit when assembling . I added the wings next and these were fine with a bit of filler , I next added the seat and dashboard and painted the whole in RLM 66 ( Xtracolor ) .

Whilst doing all this I had been assembling the engine which is 3 pieces , check carefully against the diagram to make sure you put the right piece at the front ( the shorter one ) with both pieces not being that good a fit it's back to filling & sanding again . The engine inserts are not bad especially the fan at the front which is nicely detailed but unfortunately this is not wide enuf so add a small 1- 2 mm wide ring of Milliput and sand to size . The rear insert is quite tight and easy to fit . I left both of these off for painting to give an attachment point for wire to hold the kit whilst drying. The engine attaches ok to the main body but some filler is needed to fair it in - paint the engine insides in black to provide an illusion of depth. Just attach the tailplanes and you're finished or so I thought .

Then I remembered that I should test fit the canopy so I cut the two pieces up. On test fitting I realised it might have been easier to add these before the engine . This became irrelevant as the canopy bore no relationship to either the kit or its diagram . Panic set in here and I rushed over to my spare canopies section to find a mere 15 canopies , fishing round and lo and behold a near match in the person of what looks like a Corsair canopy which must be 20 odd years old. A little trimming at the bottom and sides produced a near match which was sanded off to remove the lines and then polished with Tamiya Polishing Compound .

Well after that near disaster it was off to the spray booth.

I don't think I did a great job on this compared to other planes but here's a photo below anyway.

Rating - 4/10 Well after a bit of work it does look the part but you really do need a good spares box to fix the canopy problem ( I was bloody lucky ) . If you must have one then hurry and order from Hannants as it is limited run , it certainly looks nice completed but if you're not a 1946 nut then maybe wait for Special Hobby to try kitting this in injection moulding , they probably will now I've finished this , ho hum.

Having written the above a week later I opened the first edition of Australian Hobbies & Models to find that Planet Models are intending on bringing out a resin kit of this in '97 and knowing their product it will be much better than this kit. The trouble with being a pessimist is that you're rarely wrong where the eccentricities of kit production is concerned , hence the tonnes of kits of Me 109's , Spitfires & P-51's.

Latest update as of 15/7/97 is that because AV Resins have done this kit Planet have decided not to produce this kit , unfortunately - try NKR Models on my Links page for this kit if desired . I've also included the minimalist instructions.