1/48 Dragon He-162 Salamander

Gallery Article by Laurent “angus” Beauvais on Feb 20 2017

 

      

He-162 Salamander French n°2 12 dec 1947

Back with a pretty classic airplane: the Salamander, in also a very classic paint scheme while tested by French Air Force just after WW2. France did use several He-162 that did allow French pilots to get used to jets.

I have used the old Dragon kit which is very nice with nice details and fine engraving. I added an extra Eduard photo etched part that I finally quite did not use.

Look at the price : 35 French Francs, it makes 5.8 euros, about 5 US dollars, ridiculous.

Picture 02 : As usual my intent was to mount it straight from the box, but as usual I did scratch plenty of little things that we don’t see at the end. I have started recreating the springs by enrolling 2 wires and suppressing one.

Picture 03: The Eduard parts for the control panel is very good, some detail painting around it and you’ll obtain a realistic control panel.

Picture 04: I have deleted and recreated with plastic card the interior frames in the cockpit, and detailed the various equipments. There is then a strange problem, a hole in the fuselage where there should be the canon tube.

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Picture 05: This hole is corrected with rolling fin aluminium sheet

Picture 06: detailing continues, nothing difficult, just be patient

Picture 07: The engine is made closed, but I have detailed a little bit the parts. The Dragon seat and the Eduard seat are both wrong.

Picture 08: So I have recreated it with thermoforming the base and recreating the details in wire.

Picture 09: I have recreated the seat belts in aluminium scotch with re-using the Eduard buckles.

Picture 10-11-12: detailing continues on the right side, seat begins to look correct. 

Picture 13: Big issue with the canopy. Do not forget that on the real plane there was no frame outside, so as it is molded, impossible to obtain something correct. The opening system is also wrong.

Picture 14: So once again, I have thermoformed the canopy. I did keep the original part that I did cut to make the interior frame, and thermoformed the outside

Picture 15: Landing gear starts

Picture 16: The landing gear compass has been hollowed; the Eduard parts are too flat to be used

Picture 17: Oil juice and drybrush to obtain something realist.

Picture 18: I have recreated in aluminium (soda can) the frame in the landing gear bay. Few detailing on the front gear as quite nothing is visible at the end.

Picture 19-20-21: After the drybrush, detail painting

Picture 22: 01: oops, aluminium paint to be redone, 02: I have recreated the rear of the dashboard, it’s more real like this and can go inside the cockpit

Picture 23: some mastic is to be used to obtain clean shapes

Picture 24: The model is painted in full grey (see next picture) and oil juice has been applied. From my understanding, the Salamander has been re-painted before the 2 photos we do have from Dec. 1947, so weathering must be light.

Picture 25: The same model, the same camera, the same position, just the light that has been moved, which is the good color ? The bottom one. This shows you the difficulty of obtaining the good color from photos. The color is made mixing different paints up to obtain a gray with a little bit of blue.

Picture 26: The last details are added in the canopy, the closing mechanism completely recreated. Too bad the gap between the windscreen and the fuselage, at this stage I did prefer to leave it as it is.

Laurent “angus” Beauvais

Click on images below to see larger images

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Photos and text © by Laurent “angus” Beauvais