Arado Ar 234 B-2 by Dragon

1/72 scale
Kit No. 5003
Price: $35.00
Decals: Three versions – all Luftwaffe
Comments: Engraved panel lines, detailed cockpit, includes rocket boosters for take-off assistance, one externally mounted bomb, and two drop tanks mounted beneath engine nacelles

History

The Arado Ar 234 B “Blitz” (Lightning) was the world’s first operational jet bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. The first Ar 234 combat mission, a reconnaissance flight over the Allied beachhead in Normandy, took place August 2, 1944. With a maximum speed of 735 kilometers (459 miles) per hour, the Blitz easily eluded Allied piston-engine fighters. While less famous than the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters, the Ar 234s that reached Luftwaffe units provided excellent service, especially as reconnaissance aircraft.

Development of the Ar 234 began in 1940. The German Aviation Ministry issued an order to Dr. Walter Blume, technical director of the state-owned Arado concern, to design and build a reconnaissance aircraft propelled by the turbojet engines then under development by BMW and Junkers. Rüdiger Kosin led the design team. Largely free from Air Ministry interference, Kosin created a high-wing monoplane with two turbojet engines mounted in nacelles under the wings. The rear fuselage contained two downward-looking reconnaissance cameras.

To reduce weight and free space for larger fuselage fuel tanks, the initial prototype series dispensed with a conventional landing gear in favor of retractable skids mounted beneath the fuselage and nacelles. The airplane would taxi and takeoff atop a wheeled trolley that the pilot jettisoned as the jet left the runway. Ground crews would recover the trolley and refurbished it for the next flight. This arrangement would prove short-lived. Although design work and extensive wind tunnel testing of scale models with the trolley and skid configuration would continue throughout 1942, on December 28 of that year, the RLM Technical Department issued instructions for the development of a retractable landing gear, specifically to allow for development of a bomber variant. Prior to that time, the prototype was thought to be that of a reconnaissance platform only.

In response to the RLM Technical Office directive, Kosin and his team enlarged the fuselage slightly to accommodate a conventional tricycle landing gear and added a semi-recessed bomb bay under the fuselage. To allow the pilot to act as a bombardier, Kosin mounted a Lotfe 7K bomb sight in the fuselage floor ahead of what was called a spectacle-type control column, which the pilot could swing out of his way to kneel and use the bomb sight. A Patin PDS autopilot guided the aircraft during the bombing run. The pilot-bombardier used another periscope sight during shallow-angle, glide bombing.

Engine problems repeatedly slowed flight testing the first Ar 234. BMW and Junkers both experienced trouble building jet engines in quantities sufficient for both the Me 262 and Ar 234 programs. Although Arado completed the Ar 234 V1 airframe in late 1942, the Messerschmitt aircraft took priority and claimed the trickle of flight-ready engines that Junkers managed to turn out. Consequently, the Ar 234 V1 did not fly until July 30, 1943. The V9, the redesigned version with retractable tricycle landing gear. did not fly until March 12, 1944.

The bomber version, designated Ar 234 B-0, became the first subtype built in quantity. The Air Ministry ordered 200 Ar 234 B’s and Arado built them at a new Luftwaffe airfield factory at Alt Lönnewitz in Saxony. The factory finished and delivered all 200 airplanes by the end of December 1944 but managed to roll out another 20 by war’s end. The initial order had called for two versions of the Ar 234 B: the B-1 reconnaissance aircraft and the B-2 bomber but Arado built only the B-2 version. The company then had to convert a number of B-2 airframes into reconnaissance aircraft.

Plans called for more advanced versions of the Arado jet, including the Ar 234 C powered by four BMW 003 A-1 engines and fitted with a pressurized cockpit. Initially built with four individual engine nacelles, this version was not successful due to difficulties with the airflow. A modified four-engine version with two enlarged nacelles containing two engine on each wing met with success, but was developed to late to enter production in quantity. This Ar 234 C was, however, the most aerodynamically advanced and the fastest jet aircraft of World War II, being some 35 mph faster than the Ar 234 B. The first successful flight of the C series was on October 16, 1944.

Sub-variants of the “C” model included the C-3 multi-role aircraft and the C-3N two-seat nightfighter. However, only 14 Ar 234 Cs left the Arado factory before Soviet forces overran the area. Prototypes for the more advanced Ar 234 D reconnaissance aircraft and bomber with provision for a second crewman were under construction but not completed at war’s end.

The first Ar 234 combat mission occurred on August 2, 1944, when Erich Sommer piloted the V5 prototype on a reconnaissance sortie over the Allied beachhead in Normandy. He encountered no opposition. During his two-hour flight, Sommer gathered more useful intelligence than the Luftwaffe obtained during the previous two months. Virtually immune to interception, the Ar 234 continued to provide the German High Command with valuable reconnaissance until nearly the end of the war. The intelligence gathered, however, allowed German military planners to do little more than delay inevitable defeat, due in part to overwhelming Allied air superiority by that stage of the war.

The Ar 234 saw action as a bomber as well, mainly on the Western Front. Only one Luftwaffe unit, KG 76 (Kampfgeschwader or Bomber Wing 76), was equipped with Ar 234 bombers before Germany’s surrender. As the production of the Ar 234 B-2 increased in tempo during fall 1944, the unit received its first aircraft and began training at Burg bei Magdeburg. It flew its first operations during December 1944 in support of the Ardennes Offensive. Typical missions saw dive bombing and glide bombing attacks, but they were often pinprick strikes conducted by less than 20 aircraft, each carrying a single 500 kg (1,100 lb.) bomb. The unit participated in the desperate attacks against the Allied bridgehead over the Rhine at Remagen during mid-March 1945, but failed to drop the Ludendorff railway bridge and suffered a number of losses to anti-aircraft fire.

The deteriorating war situation, coupled with shortages of fuel and spare parts, prevented KG 76 from flying more than a handful of sorties from late March to the end of the war. In most instances the Ar 234 was immune to interception from Allied fighters, unless a pilot was caught unawares. Like the Messerschmitt Me 262, the Ar 234’s superior speed allowed it to break off an engagement at will, and it was generally only vulnerable upon takeoffs or landings when its jet engines could not be forced to accelerate quickly, unless the pilot was willing to risk the strong likelihood of a flame-out and crash.

When the war ended, there was a race by the victorious Allies to seize as much German jet technology as they could get their hands on. The Arado Flugzeugwerke and test airfields, with the sole exception of Wesendorf, fell to the Russians. But examples of the aircraft were almost exclusively deployed in the West, so what Arado bombers could be captured intact were divided among the Americans, British and French. It would not be until March 1946 that the Russians would locate an intact Ar 234 at Damgarten, in what was then East Germany, northeast of Rostock on the Baltic coast.

While it was a formidable development in the air war, the Arado Ar 234 came too late in too few numbers to affect the outcome of World War II. It was a revolutionary new bomber, an offensive weapon appearing at a time that Nazi Germany needed more fighters than ever in a losing defensive struggle against the overwhelming onslaught of Allied airpower.

The Kit

Dragon’s Arado Ar 234 B-2 is injection molded in grey plastic and consists of 115 parts, including 9 clear parts for the glazed nose, navigation lights and reconnaissance camera apertures, as well as 4 photo-etch parts on a small fret for antennae and cockpit details. The kit has engraved panel lines, recessed rivet detail and a cockpit featuring raised relief on its main and side instrument panels — no decal instruments on this kit!

Assembly begins with a cockpit tub of sorts that doubles as the wheel well for the nose wheel, so it starts off with assembly and painting instructions for the nose gear rather than the cockpit. Cockpit components come along soon enough in Step 2, featuring a two-part control yoke (the spectacle-type control column) and a seat complete with arm rests. There is even a separate throttle control lever and photo-etch details. The cockpit assembly, once complete, is cemented into a separate nose section which is later cemented to the fuselage.

One unusual feature is that the main instrument panel – a part which forms a shallow arc — is supported by a metal frame (another photo-etch part) that is cemented directly to the interior of the plexiglas nose. A certain amount of skill with cyanoacrylate and PE parts will be required to get this part secured into the nose section without making a mess. The kit includes an option for two fuel-saving rocket boosters, mounted outboard of the engine nacelles on each wing. These boosters not only saved fuel, but cut to a minimum the time that the Ar 234 was a sitting duck for patrolling Allied fighters as it took off, since the engines could only be brought to full power slowly.

There is an option for what appears to be a 750 kg bomb carried in a recessed section of the Ar 234’s belly, along with auxiliary teardrop fuel tanks carried on pylons under each engine nacelle. Finally there is a twin camera assembly that was integral to all bombers for rapid repurposing as reconnaissance platforms, to be inserted into a ventral opening in the rear fuselage. The engine intakes are nicely done, including fan blade detail that, because it is so far back from the relatively small opening, would have been easy to omit from the mold. The instructions call out paints in Gunze Sangyo colors only.

Markings

Decals are provided for three versions, two from KG 76, the only Luftwaffe unit to see combat operations with the Ar 234 during the war. The third is an Ar 234 B-2b from an unidentified unit during 1944. All versions appear to be from operational combat units since all are fitted with a periscope sight and all bear a splinter camouflage paint scheme of H304 Olivgrun/Olive Drab and H309 Grun/Green, over H314 Blue (in reality an extremely pale sky blue that is significantly lighter than Hellblau).

The first KG 76 version is actually that of a restored aircraft on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., circa 1990. It is the only known restored Arado Ar 234 anywhere in the West, bearing the call letters GS on the fuselage, both letters in black but with the “G” surrounded by a red outline.

The second KG 76 version represents an aircraft on active service in 1945, bearing the call letters AS on the fuselage, both letters in black but with the “A” surrounded by a red outline.

The third aircraft as noted above is from an unidentified Luftwaffe unit circa 1944. It bears the slightly larger call letters JH on the fuselage, all in black.

Conclusion

An excellent and crisply detailed 1/72 version of the world’s first jet bomber. Highly recommended.

References

• Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum ~ https://www.si.edu/unit/air-and-space-museum
• Profile 215: Arado Ar 234 Blitz by Richard P. Bateson, Copyright Profile Publications Limited; Windor, Berkshire, England.