Panzer Jagd Kampf flugzeug 85

The Falke is a small one man fighter based on captured SDR anti gravity technology.

Link to Development history and Scratch built model donor list in detail.

Kit Build:

The Falke has been one of my favorite SF3D designs, ever since I first saw it in one of the TCI inserts that came with the original imported kits from the late 80s. In a way, it has been my dream model, I remember seeing a fan built Falke from a model event in a Hobby Japan in the early 90s and thinking that one day I would build my own. Kow's Falke was cobbled together from around 30 kits, but these parts are better integrated than some of his other cobbled designs like the Firefly, Scout Flyer and Grosserhund. The parts mesh together well to create one of the well known icons of SF3D.

Main Components:

One of the first hurdles was obtaining the necessary donor kits. Some contribute more than others, and some only contribute to the interior. I decided early on to omit an interior and to skip any engine boom detail. So studying photos of Kow's model, cross referencing the kit list, reviewing scans of kit sprues and drawing upon my own experience building Tamiya 1/35 kits I was able determine what kits I would obtain. Some these kits, like the 1/35 B0-105 donate only a few small pieces, but I thought they were necessary enough to warrant purchasing the kit. A few pieces were donated by Dane and Juliano so I could avoid hunting down yet another rare kit. Some of the pieces were unidentifiable or I reached a point where I no longer wanted to plunk down more money to buy another kit. The P-38 donates the booms, and the S800 donates the center section and a plethora of detail pieces that sometimes eluded me even though I was looking right at it.

Once I decided to build the Falke, it didn't take as long as I thought it was going to. The Falke is 70% kits and 30% putty. This 30% putty work has to be spot on, or the model will lose some of it's character. The base components of the S800 and P-38 were laid out to determine exact placement. The P-38 booms were glued, what a hunk of junk that Revell kit is, warped parts and bad seam lines made assembly difficult, but once glued, they were cut to length and the putty work began to smooth the sides and fill in the side intakes to form the humps and wing roots. The inside of the S800 was reinforced with styrene tube and sheet, I knew there would be a bit of handling and sanding, and I didn't want anything to crack or give. The side details of the car were knocked off, wheel wells filled in, and the front of the car, which is the rear of the Falke was cut to length. The rough contour of the Falke was built up on the S800 body with Bondo and epoxy putty.

Once the major work of the center section and the booms was complete, it was time to join the main pieces. This took a lot of dry runs and double checking the photos. I finally created a frame to hold the pieces as if they were suspended on the three PPBs and fixed everything with super glue. The putty work for the wing root took some time to finalize, but once finished was a very study assembly.

After major construction was complete, I added the detail pieces, one or several parts from the kit list were cleaned up and attached to the base model. I am amazed a Kow's ability to utilize what he did from this mish mash of kits to create something tat looks so homogeneous. Like I mentioned, I had to draw a line in the sand at some point on which donor kits I would purchase, so many of the detail parts were scratch built as needed. The minigun body is full scratch from a piece of PVC and epoxy putty, this avoided a 1/32 Japanese Zero. The dive brakes are CNC machined from ABS to substitute for the 1/32 Revell Dauntless kit, with details scratch built as a replacement for the 1/24 Skyline. The center section side air intake is built from styrene and putty, to avoid the $900 1/8 McLaren kit. The gun mount frame is built from bits and pieces of landing gears to skip the 1/72 F/A-18.

The Falke is painted a color scheme to represent the British Temperate scheme of WWII, two shades of grey with a Sky underside. It's not as common as the green/grey or green/ earth, but I like the colors better. The black/white stripes are based on the invasion stripes seen on Allied aircraft that participated in the Normandy invasion to help easily identify Allied aircraft (for German gunners). I thought they would be fun to use on a Falke. Apparently, the British used an identical pattern on post war jets, but I'm not certain of their use.

First the ping pong balls were pre shaded with black and airbrushed with a light grey with a dash of ground aluminum powder to create a slight metallic sheen. These were masked and next metallic areas for the super chargers were pre-shaded with black and Tamiya Silver was applied. What a horrible paint! The ground metal flakes are horribly large and are nothing like the newer Alclad paints. But I didn't feel like re doing it, so I figured I had better pull a rabbit out of the hat during weathering. The base colors were airbrushed on with no mask, all camo being created free hand with very thin paint with a fine needle working very close to the surface. The model was clear coated, and the areas for the black and white stripes was masked off, it was very difficult to maintain perfectly parallel lines on a compound surface like that, and some crooked lines appear, but I did not notice these until I took the photos. The areas for the ID color bands were masked off and a base of white was applied to help even out and brighten the color application. Yellow with a drop of orange was finally chosen for the color bands.

Finish:

The whole thing was sealed with two coats of Future clear acrylic. Decals were applied and once set, the weathering began. The first step was to accent the panel lines with Tamiya Smoke with a drop of Flat Brown thinned and gradually built up with progressive layers. Some areas received this more than others. Next, I took the base coats and mixed white to these and applied a faded color to the center of some of the panels. A wash of artist's oils was used to accent the panel lines even further and to add stains around the engine details and the super charger and front area around the mini gun mounting. To create the streaks, small dabs of thick artist's oils was applied from the tube and wiped back with a large brush dipped in thinner. Once set, this was all sealed with Future mixed with Tamiya Flat Base. This resulted in a hard finish, but with too much sheen. I followed this up with a cost of Polly Scale Matt, this gave me the flat finish I was looking for. Over this, I applied more post shading with a custom mix of Poly Scale Matt and Vallejo Black to create a matt version of Tamiya Smoke. More staining and filter with thinned artist's oils followed. Paint chips were created with a Berol silver pencil and this was rubbed on the surface to create worn areas for pilot access. Finally, Mig pigments Black and Light Rust were applied to create further exhaust stains and discoloration.