Fledermausflügel Nachtjäger (Batwing Night Fighter)

Gallery Article by Andre Mimizu on Aug 21 2013

 

 

The Me 265 was designed to be a tailless, twin-engine, twin-seat aircraft. The fuselage front was taken from the Me 210. It could have either a one or two pilot configuration. With two pilots, it enabled the Me 265 to be a night fighter. The length of the craft was short. Only thirty feet from nose to end of tail. The wing was of a delta shape and had a wing span of fifty-seven feet. A single fin and rudder provided stability and the lower tail was extended downwards to keep the propellers from striking the ground on takeoff. Two Daimler Benz DB 603 liquid-cooled 12 cylinder engines with 1745 horsepower were built into the rear of each wing, driving four-bladed propellers. The main wheels retracted inwards towards the fuselage, and the nose wheel retracted to the rear. The second crew member a radio operator/gunner remotely operated the two MG 131 13 mm machine guns, located on the rear fuselage sides. Two MG 151/20 20mm cannon and two MG 17 7.9mm machine guns were located in the nose. This design was not followed to completion. The improved version of the ME 210, the Me 410, was chosen for production..

 

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On the build, the main airframe body and engines were taken from an AMT 1/72 Me 410. The wings and landing gears are from the Lindberg 1/48 Me 262. The night radar antennas are from the Revell 1/72 Me 262 kit. The side machine guns were "moved" further towards the tail. The air intakes to the engines was challenging. After fiddling around with several ideas, I ended up taking half a bomb part and inserted spacers to give it the desired effect. Another tricky part was the front landing gear doors. There was a slight curve on the under belly of the aircraft. I couldn't find a part to match the curvature. I adjusted the model by making it three doors. I also added external wing fuel tanks for extended flight time.

As with my previous models, I used canned spray paint in creating the camouflage scheme.

Andre Mimizu

      

Photos and text © by Andre Mimizu