Saturday, April 14, 2018

Lippisch Li.P.13B

Needing a breather from the Me. 1092/3, I opened up Anigrand's Lippisch 13B kit. Having previously looked at it, I knew with minimal parts it's should be a fairly simple build. 
From Anigrand - 
In early 1944, due to the fuel shortage in Germany at that stage in the war, Dr. Alexander Lippisch and his design team though to use other kind of material be the alternative fuel for the power of his ramjet fighter designs, such as P.13a. They tried "coal" powder and designed a hexagonal / round shaped chamber which was suitable for coal combustion, and was refilled from top center. However, the fuel chamber could not fit into the P.13a fuselage. It was led to the follow-on design, the P.13b which was started in November 1944. It also featured a delta wing plan design as Lippisch's favorite. The cockpit was moved forward for better pilot's visibility. The double rudders were chosen to provide steady flight. The main landing gear was the retractable landing skid, and rear rested on the reinforced wingtips. No actual craft was built as end of the war. It only stayed in stage of concept sketches.
Here are the minimal parts - 


Fitting the two main parts together to see, before I applied glue, it's noticed that there are no engines. So the first thing to do is to darken the openings to make sure no ones looks in and notices no engines - 
One thing I did miss, was the opening at the other end. It wasn't obvious and just an oops.

Gluing the two parts of the fuselage, the kit was essentially just about done. Looking at the instructions, there was no specific color callouts (b/c the plane never really existed) so I used the typical RLM 81 and 82 for the top, and RLM 76 for the bottom. The camo shown had hard edges, and it was at this time that I noticed the painting images looked to be the same size as the model. I then cut up the painting image to make stencils for the model. But first I airbrushed the darkest color in to the approximate locations - 
You'll notice I also painted the cockpit (which is just a seat and stick) a dark gray. After this I sprayed with a matte poly, and left it to dry. 
Thanks for looking.
 



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