Fiesler Fi 103 "Reichenberg"
© Randy Asplund
|
This model comes with the Ba 349
Natter. I guess they are too small to be packaged alone! The
Reichenberg
is the German version of the Kamikazi plane. You start with a
V-1 Buzzbomb and modify it for a pilot. The idea was to put a
Hitler Youth (aka brainwashed idiot teenager) into the cockpit
with almost no flight training. He would then try to fly it out
to a target like a ship, and then put it intpo a dive. Theoretically,
the idea was that the exhuberant individual would then have a
few seconds to open the canopy and jump free. I think the best
estimates of being able to do this without getting killed was
something like a 10% chance of sucess. Yeah, right. They were
expected to be suicide pilots. However, they decided not to do
this, and the planes never attacked anyone.
I did a fair bit of accurizing on this model, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the Matchbox V-1 sold by Revell of Germany. I did have to remake the mounting points and add pitot tube & something that I think is the sight. I also hinged the cockpit and made the seat harness. I had to score some lines and also add the rudder pushrods. On a sad note, just as I was writing this page came news that the World Trade Center had just been attacked by a suicide planes. Three civilian airliners were hijacked and used in suicide attacks against the WTC and the Pentagon. The assinine evil of that attack was simply stunning. As evil as they were, even the screwed-up Nazis didn't end up wasting their own children's lives in these kinds of suicide attacks. Now today, some brainwashed shadows of evil have decided to commit suicide by killing thousands on innocent civilians who never had a thing to do with them. The power of evil is truly amazing.  See my painting Reichenberg! The Fi 103 being used against shipping and being attacked by a Gloster Meteor fighter. |