Horten ho 229

Here it is, my horten 229 flying wing
Backround: Together with the Bv 141 the horten 229 is probably the most unique aircraft that took to the skies in wwii. This flying wing was designed by the horten brothers, which had already designed flying wing gliders before wwii. The horten brothers designed the 229 as a concept for a new glider at first but the project found big inerests in the german luftwaffe. Hermann göring, leader of the luftwaffe was highly interested in thendesign and gave the hortens extra money for developing their new glider into a jet powered fighter aircraft. The new design was called intern as the horten h IX. The new fighter aircraft was planned to have he BMW 003 engines but a shortage of these engines meant that the Jumo 004 engine was used instead. The bigger 004 meant that the construction had to be overworked. The horten 229 was built up out of wood mostly, only the engin parts around the cockpit were metal. Planned armament was 2 mk 103 in the V6, the serial machines were planned to have four cannons of 30 mm calibreA trycicle landin gear was planned , the nose wheel was huge and gave the the 229 an diagonal stand which gave it a rather short take off way. The 229 was planned to carry up to 1000kg of bombs, could fly 1000km/h fast and a range of 1000 km- therefore the program was called the 3-1000 program. The first 229 was a glider, while the v2 was already powered by jet engines and had its maiden flight in february 1945. Several flights were made with the v2 but on the 4th flight the v2 piloted by erwin ziller crashed and killed the pilot. No one knows why it crashed. The v3 never took to the sky as the enemy forces forced to abandone the test flight station . On a test flight were it performed a simulated dogfight against a me 262, the 229 showed itspotential, as it was faster, and much more maneuvrbale. there are some doubts if this flight happened as the herman army had a shortage of fuel at that time but the results are plausible . The 229 was much more maneuvrable than other jet fighters of its time, it was even as maneuvrable as a prop driven aircraft. The 229 was also the first stealth aircraft. Test performed by northrop sowed that this plane has a very low radar signature. the rarar of that time wasnt as good as todays radar and the test results sho that the english radar would have shown the 229 only a few minutes before its arrival. With that short time and a top sped of 977 km/h it would have been impossible to catch even for spitfires and hurricanes.its heavy armament made it a very potent enemy but it never entered service as the war ended before more could been built.Reimar Horten worked on another plane based on the 229, the horten XVIII long range heavy bomber. This huge flying wing bomber was designed to bring the terror of war to american cities and it was set to be powered by 6 jet engines. The horten 18 was planned to use nuclear weapons on which germany already worked on.The V3 was captured by allied forces and sent to america where it still stands and awaits restoration.



The model kit. The kit is from revell in 1/72 scale. It contains 70 parts and costs 9,99€

Detail: Very nice. it has very fine details, the landing gear is highly detailed as is the cockpit with its awesome frame structure. But what is the best is the interior. not only is the structure of the inner wing ankles wonderful portrayes, also the 2 mk 103 30mm cannons are completely included and can be seens if you dont glue the cover parts onto the fuselage as you can see in the pictures.
The detail is just awesome. I really doubt that the other producers which offer the horten 229 have such great detail.
*****
Fitting. I had no problems with fitting everything went fine together
*****
Functions: Here we have a great surprise as jet models of that scale usually dont offer any functions. But here we can move the big nose wheel and the flaps which cover the mk 103 cannons can also be put off as you can just stick them onto the openings without gluing them( the manual doesnt states this but you can do it.
*****
Decals. It includes decals for 2 fictional versions of the german luftwaffe. As you can use whatever decals you want cause its a luft´46 aircraft, I went beyond a straight from the box paint job and marking by using the 2 big edelweii flowers that I still had from my albatros d.V. The rest are the original decals from the kit. The decals are clear and very detailed.
*****
Extrapoints: The horten 229 is an awesome aircraft and the revel kit is just fantastic. I love that kit. It is perfectly executed and it just looks fantastic
*****
Fazit: I can absolutely recomment this kit. It is the ultimate 229 kit in my opinion . It offers everything that you exspect from an awesome 5 star kit-awesome details, perfect fitting amazing fuctions and the awesome decal quality from revell-this kit is perfect in my opinion and not difficult to built either. I can absolutely recommend this kit to everyone who like extraordinary aircraft and to fans of wwii aircraft.
It is one of my favourite revell models and I would built it anytime again.
*****
Note: The paintjob is completely fictional and depicts a machine of JG 400.
And believe it or not the assembly and the painting of the kit took me jsut a few hours!