That looks cool!!! Odd about the landing gear, I'd think maybe the weight would be forward in a normal plane but here the big heavy rocket engines would be in the stern so that doesn't make much sense.

I read somewhere the Germans probably wouldn't have had an A-bomb until 1960 or so at the earliest. A good number of the best German atomic scientists and engineers were Jewish. Executing your best experts, shoving them in camps, or pushing them to flee overseas wasn't the best idea.

The Japanese were far closer to having the Bomb than the Germans. They at least were on the right track. They thankfully didn't have the enriched uranium to build the thing. And having the Imperial Navy and Imperial Army running two entirely separate programs didn't help. 

Here is a sketch I made using information from Unicraft's German A-Bomb set:

I KNEW it would be handy one day!  My bomb of choice is the SA 4000.  The Unicraft set was foisted on a friend who is endowed with greater modeling horsepower than me.  The dang resin felt like Pez candy, and was bubbly as a can of soda!

Definitely an attention getter when it's sitting on the shelf!

This thing looks like something that would have been seen on "The Man in the High Castle".

So over the weekend I glued the wing halves together.  They only needed a little scraping down from the inisde.  I have a ceramic scraper that works great for this kind of thing.  Sorry, I forgot to take a photo; I'll follow up with one.  I also glued the fins to the horizontal stabs to see how strong the butt joints were.  They seem OK.

I glued the landing gear doors shut and cut out the bomb bay doors.

So now I am committed to relocating the gear aft.  I can't see how the thing could land with gear so far forward.  Oh yeah, one way missions ending with a bail out?  Then no landing gear would be needed!  I'm going to add some anyway, wishful thinking and all that.  I was going to start the bomb bay last night but fell asleep on the floor again.  Drats.  I have chosen a bomb design that looks just as kooky as the Silbervogel.

Reminiscent of the thinly disguised one use airfields up in Northern Canada.

Bill

Rob Gronovius

Yes, I built that one, but the one I'm talking about looks similar but is a WW2 German bomber that was to fly one way to the US, bomb their target and parachute out to be recovered by U-boat. It had jet engines on the top of it.

I was a big fan of the hypothetical planes of the 1980s and 90s. The Testors F-19 and MiG-37 Ferret (my personal favorite), the Stingbat stealth helicopter, this B-2 stealth bomber and the Testors Thunderdart and SR-75 Penetrator. This last one was quite a setup. One day, I should finish it.

 

I wasn't sure if you meant the German one or the US. But ye, thats the 555. Built that kit a few years back, nice kit.

Thats the first time i have heard of the intention for the crew to bale out. The Silbervogel was intended to land on Japanese Islands in the pacific, though a post war study found it would not have survived re-entry as designed. The plan submitted in 1942 called for useing the Azores as a re-fuelling point.

That was the Arado Ar E555.  Revell Germany also did a 1/288 scale "Sanger Space Transporter", which was a ramjet powered aircraft mother ship carrying a piggy back rocket orbiter.

Do pigs really carry their young in this manner?  Or was that how we used to take piggies to market?  Should I be traumatized that my parents often carried me this way?  My mother did mention from time to time that she wanted to slaughter me.  

Speaking of slaughter, the Silbervogel has been under the knife over the weekend.  I'll be making a bomb bay and relocating the main gear further aft.  Still trying to figure a strong way to attach the thin horizontal stabs.

It's looking real ugly right now.  . Will post pics this week.

Yes, I built that one, but the one I'm talking about looks similar but is a WW2 German bomber that was to fly one way to the US, bomb their target and parachute out to be recovered by U-boat. It had jet engines on the top of it.

I was a big fan of the hypothetical planes of the 1980s and 90s. The Testors F-19 and MiG-37 Ferret (my personal favorite), the Stingbat stealth helicopter, this B-2 stealth bomber and the Testors Thunderdart and SR-75 Penetrator. This last one was quite a setup. One day, I should finish it.

Rob Gronovius

Awesome project, didn't Revell(?) or somebody, do a kit with a similar concept (one way bomber)?

The only thing that comes to mind is the fictitional US stealth bomber by Revell that kinda looks like the actual stealth bomber, you know, boomerang shaped.

 

Do you mean this one.

Revell did produce the Ar 555.

My theory is that there was a secret cabal of scientists and engineers in Germany that were determined that they could defeat Hitler by pouring resources into projects like this.

Awesome project, didn't Revell(?) or somebody, do a kit with a similar concept (one way bomber)?

The only thing that comes to mind is the fictitional US stealth bomber by Revell that kinda looks like the actual stealth bomber, you know, boomerang shaped.

Yeah I really don't know how plausible a lot of that was. The Germans were very cutting edge for sure and ahead in many ways, but even Lockheed had a jet fighter desigh in 39. The L 133 was considered to outlandish and probably wouldn't have been feasible anyway due to materials and the knowledge at the time. 

Real G

Gamera,

Lufthansa markings and windows would be a perfect counterpart to the Pan Am Orion shuttle in 2001!  

Gamera,

Lufthansa markings and windows would be a perfect counterpart to the Pan Am Orion shuttle in 2001!  

Yeah, the whole Nazi UFO conspiracy is implausible to me.  Not that I would dismiss any serious German research into anti-gravity, high energy systems or whatnot.

Hi;

 Well, the thing is, after looking at your Photos I have to agree with you

That's friggin' awesome G!!! Love to see German desperation... ahem I mean wunder weapons...

Though at least this makes more sense than that darn Die Glocke flying saucer thingie.

Looks like a neat kit!

Although I'd be tempted to do a civilian model with Lufthansa markings and windows in the sides...  

Cool - happy to see you getting started on this very interesting model.

GMorrison

...Also interesting there are no Swastikas in the decal set... 

Not surprised.  Europe is probably their primary market, with other countries after that.

Greg

First Cup-o-Noodles and now this. (Both new to me)

You surely do come up with interesting stuff, G.

 

In my defense Greg, the Cup Noodle wasn't me!    But yeah, finding weird model kits is sort of my hobby within the hobby.  

And so without further ado, here is the latest find on the chopping block.

The Ukrainian model consortium (Amodel, Mikro Mir, Modelsvit, AMP, et al) seem to have tiers in their kit development.  While some of their recent kits have marvelous fit, some don't.  The Silbervogel is not the worst of the bunch, but is not at the top either.  The clear nose was not the same length as the solid plastic floor, so a shim was added to the floor to line things up.  The aft bulkhead with the rocket engines fit only after thinning the walls of the fuselage.  The long fuselage bottom needed to be trimmed so that it would not foul the rear bulkhead.  Some strip plastic was added to the insides of the upper fuselage to help position the bottom piece.

So at this point, things look pretty ugly, but some filler and primer will make things better.  And typical of these Ukrainian kits, it no longer fits in the box!

After the fuselage is dealt with, I'll have to figure out a way to secure the horizontal stabilizers, which have no locating pins or tabs.  They are thin, so it's going to require a bit of thought.  Here is the model with the flying surfaces placed next to the fuselage.

I am still mulling landing gear options, as I feel the mains are waaaaaay too far forward to allow proper rotation on landing.

First Cup-o-Noodles and now this. (Both new to me)

You surely do come up with interesting stuff, G.

Oh wow! Never even knew this aircraft existed although I'm not surprised by it. The Germans were coming out of the woodworks with technological advances by the end of the war. Looking forward to seeing this one hit the bench.

I don't think they had anything figured out at the time.  A sub-orbital hop would not get you back to Germany.  And the launch would be harrowing, with swarms of Allied jabos overhead and the crew blacking out while accelerating to 1,200 MPH while still on the ramp.  And how they intended to calculate the release point for the bombload while doing 13,000 MPH at the edge of space is quite beyond me.  And the landing.  How do you coordinate what is basically a Space Shuttle landing without the benefit of a worldwide communication network?  So yeah, technically feasible, but not in 1943.

Still, it's a neat looking model.    Maybe Mikro Mir will do an X-20 companion kit?

Fantastic stuff. I had no real knowledge of the program.

Antipodal fight, i.e. flying to a spot on the opposite side of the globe via the shortest route; was new stuff when 4,000 miles was considered a difficult range for an aircraft.

Assuming it took off from Peenemunde and flew to the northernmost of the Japanese Islands, I think Hokkaido; flight would be nearly directly over the North Pole. That calcs at about 9,000 miles but involves no targets past Oslo. To bomb NYC would add about 3,000 miles to the flight. 12,000 miles is a very long flight. It would be a certainty that the crew knew they would either crash or somehow bail out over the Great Lakes.

And as was learned in the STS missions, re-entry is not a certain thing.

Also interesting there are no Swastikas in the decal set.

Very nice kit, can't wait to see it built up.

Bill

Vedddy intadesting!!!  Slightly peculiar but vedddy watchable.

Jim 

Stay Safe. 

Now this is definitely something you don't see every day!

Well, I'll be watching.

Excellent!  I hope 3D printed IPs included are the wave of the future.   Pretty wild thinking for back then.  Glad it didn't work!