Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet 'Ekdo 16'

[AnonymousAA74]

Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet ‘Ekdo 16’

1:32 Hasegawa

The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was the world’s first rocket powered fighter/interceptor, designed by Alexander Lippisch originally as the DFS194. The diminutive Me 163A first flew late in 1941, setting a world speed record of over 1000km/h. With its distinctive stubby, tail-less design, the Me 163 wasn’t actually designed by Lippisch to carry any weaponry, so the fact that it eventually was fitted with guns, and managed its short service life by acquiring ‘kills’ was nothing short of amazing. The Komet took off on a jettisonable ‘dolly’ undercarriage, which it then released, sometimes with catastrophic consequences, when it achieved a certain height. After this, the Komet soared skyward at an amazing rate of climb, but once in the combat zone, it was both limited by its endurance, and ability to shoot down bomber aircraft due to its amazing high speed in relation to the enemy. After combat, the Komet would glide to earth and be recovered using a special towing machine, or after being lifted on inflatable bags.

The lack of experienced pilots who could handle the quick thinking required from a rocket speed attack on the enemy, coupled with the highly volatile and explosive fuel mixture (T-Stoff and C-Stoff) and the risk of explosion on landing and take-off, certainly worsened the situation for operating the Komet. Over 300 Komets were built, and of those destroyed, most were through accident only. The final kill tally for the whole of the Komet project was a paltry sixteen confirmed ‘kills’.

The Hasegawa Komet is hardly a newcomer to the market, and the moulds are themselves now almost 40 years old! Having said that, Hasegawa know that there is still a marketable value in their kit, as despite not having some of the refinements of modern releases, the model is itself pretty accurate in shape and overall profile, plus, until the release of the rumoured Dragon kit at some stage, if you want to build the Komet in 1:32, this is the only game in town.

The Komet is packaged in the now typical Hasegawa top-opening box, which is perhaps a little thinner than more contemporary releases from this company. The artwork depicts Hauptmann Wolfgang Späte in his all-red Me 163, having just made a pass over a flight of B-17 bombers.

Moulded from medium grey styrene, the Komet is moulded across just 2 sprues, with a third sprue for the clear parts. This release also has two very small resin components which, from what I can gather are ‘exhaust’ ports to expel any un-combusted gases in the rear fuselage. Looking over the parts across both sprues, it is evident that the moulds are now quite old, as a noticeable amount of flash has crept in. Looking closely at the affected parts, the flash itself will be easy to remove and won’t cause any problems, but only an hour or so of your time to fix. I also notice that ejector pin marks cause no problems, and there are no visible sink marks.

Something which is plainly obvious are the raised panel lines, and you may choose to sand these down and scribe them instead. The good news with the Komet, however, is that there really aren’t that many panel lines due to the construction of the actual machine, so this task should only set you back a couple of hours at the very most. As this is still a great little kit, I consider this a small price to pay for what you’ll achieve.

The Komet does have a detailed cockpit, but in all honesty, it could do with a little updating, if you mood takes you. The instrument panel is quite dated looking, and the seat rather clunky. You could do a little scratch-building in there, or you could opt for the excellent CMK resin cockpit, or the Eduard set which not only includes a cockpit with an etch seat and side-walls (totally missing in the plastic release!), but also photo-etch for the landing skid.

The fuselage is designed to have a detachable rear portion so that you can display the included Walther HWK109-509 rocket motor. Exterior detail on the fuselage, as stated, it depicted with raised panel lines and ports, as well as rivets. The rudder is integrally moulded to the rear fuselage, and the fabric and rib depiction of the rudder is adequate. There is no internal detail whatsoever within the fuselage, including side-wall detail or rib/stringer detail in the rear fuselage. Flash is evident in many places.

The wings also have the same adequate levels of detail for the fabric control surfaces, but the airbrake and leading edge slots are well depicted. One problem you will have to overcome is the jointing of the wing on the underside, as the rear trailing edge of the wing, about 4 or 5mm inwards, is where the part joins. This means there would be a join line running right through the ailerons etc. Again, not difficult to fix; just poor design or perhaps limitations in the moulding technologies at the time. I can’t tell.

The Walther rocket motor is actually a reasonable representation, and should you wish to use it, will only require some low-level plumbing to make it look good. As the rear fuselage fit to the forward fuselage isn’t 100% great, I would join the halves together, and sand the joint where needed and either leave the engine out, or display it on a mount next to the completed model.

The landing skid and dolly do build up rather well, but I still think the addition of the Eduard set brings this model very much up to date in many respects.

The single sprue of clear parts are well moulded, but with a little flash. Only one continuous frame line runs around the edge of the main hood, but this is very subtle and would benefit from a couple of coats of Mr Surfacer to enhance it slightly. The armoured windscreen is also included. Clarity of all parts is good, but would he helped by dipping in Klear/Future.

Instructions are excellent, despite their age, with everything in plain line drawing, and the three colour schemes are printed in black and white on the reverse of this sheet. The schemes included are:

• Me 163BV41, Ekdo 16, Hauptmann Wolfgang Späte, May 1944 (all red machine!)

• Me 163BV51, Ekdo 16, July 1944

• Me 163B-1a, Royal Air Force requisition aircraft, May 1945

Decals are supplied on a single sheet, including the ever contentious swastikas. Printing is reasonable thin, will all colour being both solid and authentic, and everything also in perfect register. A large number of stencils are included, as is a decal for the instrument panel. This would help somewhat, if you choose to build out of box only.

Conclusion

Despite this kits advancing years (almost as old as me!), I still have a soft spot for it, and it does indeed make up into a fine model with a little care and attention. Hasegawa must also know this, and it must still be popular for them to keep pumping it out. Just get some Eduard or CMK, and have fun! Recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

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