Messerschmitt Me 263 by Mikro Mir
1/72 scale
Kit No. 72-001
Cost: $22.00
Decals: One version – Luftwaffe
Comments: Engraved panel lines, one-piece bubble canopy
History
The rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 “Komet” interceptor came as a nasty surprise to Allied bomber crews and fighter pilots when it appeared in the skies over Germany in August 1944. Some 300 of the type were built during the war but its limited endurance and explosive fuel mixture prevented it from tipping the balance in Germany’s favor. It was a fearsome weapon with impressive speed and hard-hitting armament, but each flight was measured in minutes, allowing time for at most two passes at Allied bomber formations before the pilot was forced to glide to earth in a controlled crash landing.
Looking to improve on the Me 163, the RLM in the late summer of 1944 commissioned Junkers to modify an Me 163B, even as Messerschmittt was hard at work on a new version, the Me 163C. The idea was to build on the strengths of the Komet while curing its deficiencies. Work began on a modified fuselage given the designation Ju 248 “Flunder” (Flounder), which retained the Me 163’s bubble canopy, rearward-swept wings and single-finned tail unit (sans horizontal stabilizers). But it was to have larger dimensions, providing for greater internal fuel capacity and addressing one of the Komet’s critical flaws — severely limited range.
The Me 163’s jettisonable wheeled dolly undercarriage was abandoned in favor of a new, fully retractable tricycle landing gear — which had been proven in the Me 163B V18 prototype. In a concession to the shortage of strategic metals, the wings were completed in wood (though with extra fuel storage built-in) and the cockpit was fully-pressurized to allow for unfettered high-altitude flight.
The powerplant for the prototype was the same, a single Walter HWK 509C series rocket motor capable of 4,410lbs. of thrust, with an additional 882 lbs. of auxiliary thrust from two available chambers. But the planned engine for the production models was the BMW 109-708 series rocket motor, which promised more power. The chosen fuel would remain the volatile combination of “T-Stoff” and “C-Stoff” — making the Me 263 as potentially deadly for its own pilots as its predecessor. The armament too would remain unchanged, two 30mm MK 108 cannon, fully capable of bringing down the large Allied bombers laying waste to German war-making facilities and infrastructure.
On September 25, 1944, the prototype was displayed to RLM officials in wooden mockup form and another review took place in December of that year. Before the end of the year, the original Ju 248 designation was succeeded by the revised Me 263 “Scholle” (Plaice) designation – despite Junkers still heading design and development of the project. Me 263 V1 was to serve as the first-of-three prototypes during development (V1, V2 and V3).
By the beginning of 1945, with the Russian, British and American armies converging on Germany’s borders from the east and west, the Luftwaffe and the RLM were of two minds about the potential benefits of the Me 263 program, with some championing the effort and others calling for its cancellation. Nevertheless, the Me 263 V1 was towed into the air for an unpowered first-flight in February. The aircraft lacked its engine and armament and its tricycle undercarriage was fixed in place for simplicity. Overall, the design proved sound but the test flight pointed up the need to address the airframe’s unstable center-of-gravity. Further flight testing was disrupted by a lack of fuel for the tow planes, at a time when every drop was needed by what was left of the Luftwaffe’s fighter arm.
Junkers discovered rather late in the fabrication process that the V1 and V2’s fuselages were ill-equipped to accommodate the intended HWK 509C rocket motor. Valuable time was lost while the fuselages were lengthened. Construction resumed and the V1, V2 and V3 were all at different stages of completion when Allied forces overran and confiscated the Me 263 factory. Both the V1 and V2 had their rocket motors installed but neither had been tested, and the V2 still had not been fitted with retractable landing gear.
The Allies had designated military and civilian intelligence teams charged with identifying and removing as much data and material as they could — including complete airframes where possible — on German aerospace technology. The Americans would study the Me 263 program at length back in the States, while the Soviets benefited from dissection of one of the prototypes — leading to development of the homegrown Mikoyan-Gurevich I-270 interceptor prototype of which two were built in the post-war period.
Performance estimates of the Me 263 V1 interceptor included an impressive maximum speed of 550 miles per hour — comparable to that of the Me 262 — an operating service ceiling of 45,215 feet (necessitating the pressurized cockpit and oxygen supply for the pilot) and a excellent rate-of-climb of 29,500 feet-per-minute.
The Kit
Released in 2010, Mikro Mir’s Messerschmitt Me 263 V1 is injection molded in grey plastic and comes on three sprues consisting of 36 parts. For a limited run kit, it is crisply molded and almost completely devoid of flash. It features a surprising level of detail for this scale; the cockpit includes main and side instrument panels bearing both raised and recessed detail for the instrumentation, along with a bucket seat, control yoke and rear bulkhead.
The fuselage consists of upper and lower halves, with four panels to be cemented into the lower half, forming the main landing gear bay. The gear are fair in their level of detail and the landing tires are devoid of tread and appear slightly oversized, which may be entirely accurate given the high speeds at which the Me 263 would have landed — its predecessor the Me 163, which had no landing gear, is known to have routinely made forced landings at speeds in excess of 100 mph.
There is a clear part for a reflector gunsight, another part for a headrest,and a radio antenna for the one-piece canopy, which thankfully has well-defined framing, but represents a departure from the Me 163’s smaller, pure bubble canopy. A spare canopy and reflector gunsight are thoughtfully provided. Each of the wings consist of two parts, upper and lower halves, while the vertical tail is a single part. There is a small but well-machined part with dual exhausts, one atop the other, to be cemented to the rear of the fuselage — an interesting exhaust configuration given that the Me 263, like the Me 163, would have had a single rocket motor. In a faithful duplication of the Me 163 design, a small propeller powering an on-board generator caps the nose cone. A two-piece tail skid completes the kit.
Markings
The kit decals provide for a single Luftwaffe version, call letters DV + PA. The markings have a rather flat finish and could be prone to silvering — modelers may want to consider aftermarket replacements. Since the Me 263 never achieved operational status, there is no unit information and a speculative paint scheme consisting of a typical Luftwaffe splinter camouflage pattern (RLM 81 and RLM 82) on the wings and forward third of the fuselage, with Light Blue/RLM 76 under surfaces and the rear two-thirds of the upper half of the fuselage bearing a mottled pattern of RLM 76 and RLM 81.
Conclusion
This is a crisply molded and surprisingly well detailed replica of a Luft ’46 fighter. Highly recommended.
Reference
www.militaryfactory.com