{"id":8549,"date":"2021-11-10T08:01:17","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T13:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/blog\/?p=8549"},"modified":"2021-11-10T08:01:17","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T13:01:17","slug":"i-build-peanut-warbirds-the-bf-109","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/volareproducts.com\/new2024\/i-build-peanut-warbirds-the-bf-109\/","title":{"rendered":"I Build Peanut Warbirds – the Bf-109"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s add the Messerschmitt BF-109E to the Peanut Warbird stable, which now includes the I-16<\/a> (first built by me in 1991, then 2020), the Barracuda<\/a> (1998, then 2015), the Stuka<\/a> (2013), the Corsair<\/a> (2019), and the Yak-3<\/a> (2020)!<\/p>\n

I am always on the search for the “next” model.\u00a0 After I completed the Yak-3,\u00a0 I was wondering what warbird should be next?\u00a0 A flying friend suggested a P-40.\u00a0 I’ve always liked the P-40, so I started in on that.\u00a0 It was a slow-go, with no real rush, and there are always other plans already in the works.\u00a0 (By the way, excluding the P-40 and the Bf-109, there are FOUR other WWII Peanut warbirds on my mental and virtual drafting boards!)<\/p>\n

In late June, I received an email from a 13-year-old modeler in Munich, Germany named Emil Frey.\u00a0 Emil kindly asked if I had ever considered drawing up a BF-109 in Peanut Scale?\u00a0 Actually, I never have – I’ve been told that the 109s are not easy to fly.\u00a0 In addition, they have a ton of “things” hanging off the aircraft that are bothersome for modeling:\u00a0 scoops, exhausts, struts, bumps, and so on.\u00a0 In addition, the early versions are a little ugly – blocky and crude.\u00a0 But…inspired by the interests of a youngster, I told him that I would give it a shot and see if I could draw up something.\u00a0 I settled on the model E (coincidentally the “Emil” model in the German phonetic alphabet).\u00a0 It has square tips and less curves than the later F and G models (the later ones look better, in my opinion).<\/p>\n

The results are shown here.\u00a0 I built up the wings pretty quickly and then the horizontal stab and one side of the fuselage.\u00a0 Then it sat.\u00a0 It seemed like it sat on my building board forever, but it was really only a month.\u00a0 I just didn’t have the drive to work on it. The fuselage is a little tricky to build since it has a triangular shape – it required a lot of pinching and spreading to get the longerons to cooperate with narrow formers at the top and wide ones at the bottom.<\/p>\n

I did get a canopy buck roughed out, but was having problems with the transition at the rear, so I asked Archie Adamisin if he could blend my 3D file and he did a fine job (it is thanks to him that I got this far).\u00a0 I pulled a canopy early – and then lost it.\u00a0 I had finished up the fuselage and, as I told him, I spent more time looking for the missing canopy than it would take to just go pull another one – a LOT more time.<\/p>\n

Canopies are always a tense time for me.\u00a0 Just like designing formers and then hoping they fit when you build the model, a canopy is designed around two-dimensional parts to create a three-dimensional item that you hope fits.\u00a0 This canopy fit perfectly.<\/p>\n

I found a nice Hungarian computer game skin that I liked.\u00a0 I did all the work of converting it to tissue templates, printing the tissue, and then covering the model.\u00a0 It was looking pretty snazzy with the tissue and the canopy.\u00a0 Then I realized that I didn’t have documentation for the model.\u00a0 I did a lot of searching for Hungarian BF-109s and finally found a #12 with a yellow nose – BUT it was an F-model in actuality, and the lettering was different.\u00a0 Usually, the gaming skins are pretty reliable, but this seemed to be less-than-accurate.\u00a0 Another disappointment following the potential poor flying of a typical 109 and I do like the FW-190 much better.<\/p>\n

I stacked up a 5.5″ Diameter by 7″ Pitch (what I successfully used on the Yak) and finished up the model.\u00a0 It weighs in at 10.5 grams, which is just a smidge heavier than I had hoped, but it might work.\u00a0 I decided to test with a short loop of 1\/8″ rubber; usually I’d try a loop of 3\/32″, but I went with 1\/8″.\u00a0 I put in a hundred or so turns and the first test flight was a surprise – while is was banked left and flew straight and stalled, I was really impressed with the potential it showed.\u00a0 I tweaked the Gizmo Geezer nose button (there’s about 1.5g right there) – a little down, then some left, but settling on more right and was rewarded with some flat right circles on about 200 turns.\u00a0 A small pinch of clay on the tail and here is what I stopped with yesterday.<\/p>\n