With the major fuselage and wing assemblies completed in Part 1, I continued on with Part 2 of the 1/24 Airfix Hellcat F6F-5 build.

The tail planes, elevators, rudder and ailerons with their respective, movable, trim tabs were glued together with minimal problems. Make sure the elevator hinges are inserted the correct way… I got it wrong…twice!!! Luckily, the glue was still wet so I could pry the elevators open and correct my mistake….twice!!!! The instructions clearly show the correct way to install these.

Here’s another interesting and informative book by Steve Zaloga. He has done a few books for Osprey. By my count (from Wikipedia) this is his 27^th Osprey title. He’s doing it right.

Contents

• Introduction
• Antiship Missiles
  • Fritz-X
  • Hs 293
• Flak Missiles
  • Unguided Flak Rockets
  • Flak Missiles
    • Rheinmetall Borsig Rheintochter
    • Henschel Hs 117 Schmetterling
    • Messerschmitt Enzian
    • Wasserfall
• Air-to-Air Missiles
• Antitank Missiles
• Further Reading

Since Mr. Zaloga has already done Osprey books on the V-1 and V-2, these missiles are not covered in this book. But what is covered are those projects which barely made it to operational status, or weren’t quite ready when VE day occurred.

History

The Messerschmitt Me P.1103 (12/09/1944) was one of a series of experimental projects developed by Messerschmitt and other German manufacturers as desperation types designed to combat the heavy bomber offensives of the U.S. 8^th Air Force and Royal Air Force towards the end of World War II. The aircraft was classified as a Bordjager, a fighter meant to be carried or towed aloft and released by a fighter aircraft, either a Bf-109G or ME-262. Powered by a liquid propellant rocket motor, the P.1103 was armed with a single MK-108 cannon mounted in the forward fuselage. Earlier developments had the pilot in a prone position, but the December 1944 version used a regular pilot’s seat and regular one piece canopy.