During the latter years of World War II, the Luftwaffe was scrambling to finds ways to combat the ever increasing aerial onslaught of the Allied bombing campaign. Many solutions were proposed, some very successful, such as the Me 262, while others never left the drawing board. Some very odd proposals actually made it off the drawing board. The Bachem 349 Natter was one of these odd ideas that were actually in the test phase when the war ended.

This prop is not included in the Airfix kit. The Rotol prop sports a different blade shape with a wider chord. The spinner is the same as provided in the Aires replacement for the kit part QB72 491 reviewed elsewhere on this site. The spinner puts the joints lines in the right place and in the right scale. Be sure to cut the blades off the casting block to allow the maximum shaft length. The spinner holes go through the part and the long blade shafts help with the alignment of the blades. Check the blades carefully because the leading and trailing edges are slightly different shapes and I managed to put one in backwards. The tool also has a hole to center your drill so you can drill out the spinner for a prop shaft. This part is a welcome addition to an already cool little kit.

Thank you Aires Quick Boost for jazzing up the Defiant.

NEWS FLASH!! If you have one in your stash, throw away that awful old resin 1/48 F-16XL conversion set! You need not wait until you achieve master modeler skills levels to finally attempt the advanced surgery necessary to produce an example of this rare aircraft from those hunks of resin. Skunkmodels Workshop has finally come to our rescue with an affordable, 1/48 scale, injection molded F-16XL.

Two F-16XL airframes were built by General Dynamics in their Fort Worth plant in the late seventies. One single-place and one two-seat example of this truly beautiful airframe were completed. They competed unsuccessfully against the F-15E Strike Eagle in the enhanced Tactical Fighter competition in the early 1980’s, and the two examples were then turned over to NASA for research.