This is the other four-engined aircraft for the Battle of the Atlantic display, Patuxent River Museum. This kit was started by a fellow modeller, Dan Yakel, who did the major construction, leaving the painting, decalling and fiddly bits to me.
The Subject
The Condor started life as a mail carrier and air liner for Lufthansa, prior to the war. Like all commercial aircraft in Germany at that time, it had a parallel military mission that was kept nominally secret by the Luftwaffe. In this case, the Condor was meant to provide maritime surveillance over the North Sea and North Atlantic, supporting both surface raiders and u-boats alike with ship and convoy sightings. The Condors were actually quite good at this mission, so good that Britain quickly mounted Hurricane fighters to merchants and launched them on one-way missions to shoot them down or at the very least drive them off.
F8+OL was a typical late model Condor, also capable of carrying the world’s first guided anti-ship missiles, the Hs-293. Well, actually they were wire guided glide bombs with a rocket motor for initial acceleration, dropped from the aircraft, but they were devastating as it only took one to sink most ships.
F8+OL began service with KG 40 in 1943, providing u-boat support and harassing/attacking convoys into 1944. It and her crew met their end on 31 March 1944 when Wildcat IV/V’s from 819 and 846 Squadrons, Fleet Air Arm, shot the aircraft down as it was attacking convoy JW58. What makes this aircraft unique is that it was most likely the last maritime Condor loss of the war (two other Condors were shot down that same day by the same two squadrons). This mission was transferred to the He-177 as it came into operations.
The crew of F8+OL were: Unteroffizier Alfred Kobel (pilot), Arthur Czychi, Johann Goed, Albert Hell, Gerhard Henze, Josef Straschek and Karl-Heinz Frink.
The Model
This is a relatively new release of the Revell of Germany Condor. Revell has an older release, with less detail of an earlier variant. This kit had lots of parts and could be built, out of the box, in either an early C-4 or later C-8 variant; the latter having the ability to carry the Hs-293 glide bombs.
Since I didn’t actually do the construction, I won’t talk to it, however I will say Dan struggled with the engine cowlings. I added more putty and attempted to clean it up, but it’s a warning for when I do mine for my shelf. The landing gear is fiddly and requires lots of patience as well. The turrets and other gun positions are well represented and provide lots of detail. Most of the inside detail is lost once all the construction is done, but as always it’s nice to know it’s there.
This is a BIG aircraft. It’s noticeably bigger than a Halifax or B-17, both in length and span, even if not near each other. It barely fits on my shelf! The wing planform is an interesting shape, having a double taper on the leading edge and a triple taper on the trailing edge.
Painting required lots of paint. I primed with Tamiya rattle can gray primer, then air brushed Model Master Acryl RLM 72 and RLM 73. While these colors have a low contrast, one being a dark gray-green and the other being a dark blue-gray, there is enough contrast to tell there are two colors there. The paint went on smoothly and I let it cure for a week before I masked. The underside is painted Model Master Acryl RLM 65.
I considered adding white or a light gray to all the paints to lighten them for scale effect, however my attempts on older binned kits just didn’t look right. My shelf doesn’t have much for Luftwaffe subjects yet (a few Bf-109’s and Ta-183 whiff) so I have a long way to go to get my Luftwaffe colors right.
The kit decals are horrible! They are thick, and do not respond well to Micro-Set or -Sol; but when I use anything stronger they bubble and react to the solvent. It took many minutes to get the decals off the paper, and even then I had to use a bit of pressure with my fingers (always concerned that I’d tear them – the decals that is).
The decals went on over the usual coats of Future, and after they were very dry and somewhat settled I put another coat of Future on to seal it all in and allow me to handle the kit while I worked on the details.
I finished with sealing it all in with a satin mix of 1 part Acryl clear flat with 9 parts Future.
Summary
This kit took a solid 3 years of work, and I didn’t do the construction! I have lots of 4 engined bombers in my stash, but this is only the second, after the Halifax, that I’ve actually completed since high school. I did enjoy it, immensely and I’m looking forward to my next large bomber…either a Lancaster or B-17.
Thanks for reading…
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