Airfix 1/72 Messerschmitt Me 163B-1 Komet

AIRFIX 1:72 MESSERSCHMITT ME 163B-1 KOMET

Reviewer: Dave McDougall (crustyoldseadog@aol.com)
Kit Review submitted: 9 August 2001

As the only operational rocket-powered fighter of World War II, the Komet was designed to exceed the performance of conventional aircraft. Originally tested as a glider, the tailless design incorporated a wheeled dolly dropped during takeoff, and a landing skid under the fuselage. The Komet first flew operationally in May 1944. Though the Komet was not a significant factor in German air defence, the German Air Force took delivery of 339 and flew them until the end of the war.

With only 7.5 minutes of full power, the Komet climbed to operational altitude, then glided to a landing after its fuel was exhausted. With power either turned on or off, flight at altitude consisted of gliding interspersed with short bursts of power. Combustion in the temperamental rocket motor depended upon the critical mixture of two chemicals which generated extreme heat when combined. The aircraft was prone to explosion upon landing if fuel remained in the tanks. Despite exceptional flying characteristics, the Komet was unsuccessful as an interceptor because of its fast closing speed and slow-firing, short-range cannon. A pilot had to be very good or very lucky to hit a target.

The kit comes in a blister pack. It’s not a big kit, with only 30 parts. 27 of these are molded in light grey plastic, whilst the remaining 3 are clear parts.

More recent (sic!) AIRFIX boxart for this kit, supplied by Kevin Ronayne

The moldings are nice and clean. – There was no flash on any of the parts in my kit. There’s not very much in the way of detail, but what there is, is quite reasonable. For the cockpit interior for instance you’re provided with a basic chair, stick, instrument panel and (quite good actually) pilot figure.

The instructions are on the reverse of the blister packaging. These break construction down into seven stages. This is more than adequate for a simple little kit like this. The construction process follows the normal run of things, i.e. –

Cockpit interior
Fuselage halves
Wings
Undercarriage
Fiddly little bits

Airfix gives you three options to choose from when building your kit. –

You can build the kit either with the wheeled dolly or with just the landing skid fitted.
There are two different tail-wheels provided. Rather annoyingly, there’s no mention in the instructions of why this should be, nor which one you should choose!
The kit comes with one of those transparent aerial stands (remember those?). If you want to fit this, then you’ll need to clear a thin layer of plastic which covers the appropriate slot in the fuselage.

I had no problems at all with the build. I’m pleased to say that everything fitted together excellently. For once, I didn’t need to use any filler anywhere.

Decals and painting instructions are provided for two aircraft. These are (1) “Me163B-1 of 2./JG400 Brandis, Germany 1944-45” and (2) “Me163B-1 of Luftwaffe training unit, 1945”. The painting guide quotes paint numbers from the long defunct Airfix paint range. However, the guide is printed in colour so that should help in identifying which colours to use (for anyone like me who doesn’t normally build WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft!)

The decals in my kit were surprisingly good for Airfix. They were in register, nice and thinly printed. They had yellowed a bit, but nothing that couldn’t be corrected. I had no problems applying them to my model. – They went on quite nicely with the help of a little bit of setting solution.

Painting guide on the reverse side of the Airfix "boxart"

I didn’t do any measuring of wings/fuselage etc. on this kit. However, I did compare the finished model with photographs and illustrations of the real thing. I can report therefore that the Airfix kit captures the look of the 163. A lot of detail, largely in the form of panels, is missing but overall pretty good.

This is a Series 1 kit produced by Airfix. As such, it’s a very simple little kit to put together. It was fun to build and could easily be finished in a day or two. My particular example was bought second hand and has a copyright date of 1976. It’s listed amoungst Airfix’s current line-up. A number of other manufacturers have produced kits of the 163 in 1/72^nd scale. I believe that Academy’s kit is the only one currently available and I imagine that it’s a lot better quality than this one. Having said that, I imagine that it’s also a lot more expensive.

Note: the following related reviews links have not been updated since early 2000's - more kit reviews of this aircraft may now be on SMAKR, not reflected below. Refer to the Index for other kits of this type.

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Condor 1/72 Me 163A Komet

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