Greetings from Peenemünde

Missile building

The Backup Guidance System Container

I sat down one Wednesday evening to work on this weird weapon. The first thing I did was getting confused, as the cockpit tube was to be built out of a couple of unmarked and obscure pieces. There was just a single dimple for the joystick on the baseplate that was the only clear and unmistakeable thing. Then I was on my own and just glued the poor backup's seat on the plate next to the control stick, hoping that nothing would be protruding in awful ways while sealing the missile's body. After a moment watching glue set I glued the two discs on the plate, choosing the positions by my gut feeling.

The frame

I cleaned the frame halves like mad and I still wasn't sure if they'd fit together properly and cleanly enough. After some dry-fitting and recleaning rounds I decided that it was good and glued the halves together - not forgetting the emergency backup guidance system's workspace.

The results surprised me very positively as the setup worked prettily and even the cockpit fit in like a glove. The rocket engine's end wasn't quite as pretty but I let it be, trusting that the model makers had had a plan and had known what they were doing.

Wing-like bits

The wings... the thrice-cursed wings. Or whatever they were supposed to be called, I felt they were more like the fletching of an arrow. No matter what, they were in a league of their own. One looked and felt millimeters shorter than the other one. And getting them positioned, aligned with the frame and tilted at decent angles, it was awful. The final look gave me strong '50s scifi vibes.

To the rear end, behind the nozzle of the rocket motor I installed four steering vanes, which looked a few times too large for this scale. Still, I didn't start filing them down but I thought I may have to do that later on, before priming. Or maybe they wouldn't look too bad when looking from a distance and being painted and all. Hmm.

Oh well, I got my missile built, it was just waiting for the vacuformed canopy as I hadn't painted the pilot's death trap yet. That was all that was missing anymore. Next time I could do any modeling I'd at least start working on the launching scaffold. Whenever that was going to be...

Last minute update: I painted the human container and the bits that'd be covered by the canopy later on with dark grey (VMA 71052 German Grey) and the seat brown (VMA 71077 Wood).