Allen D's 1/35 Tristar Fieseler Fi-156 Storch Wing Thingy (AAGB)

[Guest]

Dude1.
Looks a nice kit, but those thin sections :flushed: but you've managed well.
Off to find a photo of this plane, the take off and landing distances are some thing else.
Keep saying " I will finish this" repeat as needed .

[Guest]

I have one in 1/32 in the stash. Having seen the RAF marked version I could be tempted to find more about it...

Several Fi 156s were used by the Allies, in North Africa as well as Europe (North-West and Italy), mainly as VIP transports. According to Wikipedia, the British captured 145, but it’s not clear if this means “captured and used” or just “captured”.

I don't think the roll cage would make it in NASCAR or the F1.

They’re struts to make sure the fuselage doesn’t fall off the wing

Great start Allen. Upside down engines are a bit odd, but the 109 was the same, and that turned out alright !

Don’t forget the H-engines that the British fitted to planes like the Hawker Typhoon. Half the cylinders in those pointed straight down.

[Guest]

Just found one for sale !
Seems they have ended up all over the world , and still considered the best STOL ever built .
According to the article they were favoured by top ranking officers because being so slow and flying so low they were not an easy target. As a liaison and observation platform it was second to none out performing every allied counterpart with both its rugged construction, reliability and performance.

It simply flew too low and slow for allied pilots to shoot it down!.No wonder then that a captured ones was used by Field Marshall Montgomery.

A number of Fieseler Fi 156s still exist, including some in Germany, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States. The aircraft served with armed forces of postwar Poland, Czechoslovakia, Spain, and France, as well as with those in Thailand. The Japanese even flew a modified version as late as 1997.
A really interesting plane, even for me as a none wingy:smiling3:

[papa 695]

Nice start Allen.

[Guest]

Seems they have ended up all over the world

They kept being built for quite a while after the war, including in France (because the Germans had set up a factory for them there) as the Morane-Saulnier 500-series, nicknamed Criquet, and in Czechoslovakia as the K-65 Čáp. Production only ended in 1965 in France.

[Jim R]

Hi Allen
Good progress already. If you can get the fuselage halves together without filler that would be thumbs up for Tristar.
Jim

[Si Benson]

Hi Allen,
Great to see this out of the starting gates. Actually looks to have some nice details, just hope you can keep the mojo bubbling and we get to see another update soon :thumb2:

[rtfoe]

Snigger snigger...you said to keep the laughter down but a little slipped out when I saw this ..."Next I started fixing up the butt with the rudder and the little wings," :tears-of-joy:

Seriously a good start Allen and great scale for a dio. The inverted V-8 is nicely done...only the Germans can turn it upside down for practicality and aerodynamics. I built a 1/72nd one and can easily be mistaken and slapped as a mosquito.:smiling6:

Cheers,
Richard

[Neil Merryweather]

I saw one at an airshow once and it actually flew backwards!

[Mini Me]

Hi Allen, I just caught up with this. Nice start on the Storch.
Cheers, Rick H.

[scottie3158]

Hi Allen,
Chair pulled up. Sounds like a really interesting aircraft and your off to great start.

[Allen Dewire]

Evening Fine Folks,

Thank you all so much for your support and comments on my Storch. It was a pretty wild wing thingy!!! Andrew, glad to have you on board for this and Colin is so correct about inverted engines. I had forgotten about the 109. John, I will finish this and I have an evil plan for painting it too. Great info Jakko, much appreciated. Ian, Rick and Paul, thanks for the support guys!!! I too hope the fuselage goes together Jim, as putty is not my best friend. Mojo is flying high Si and building this is a bit different. Thanks Richard, you have me laughing too!!! not to hip on the names of wing thingy parts I'm afraid. Wow Neil, that must have been really cool to see. I think we had one on display at the air shows we used to have here in Bamberg along with a JU-52 in civilian colors. Have to dig through the old files to find pics…

I have done some more today, but found my AK grey had thickened up over time and I had to try and thin it down. No interior painting, but I did paint the motor. My evil plan (ok, not so evil) to paint this puppy is as follows…..

The main wings are in two pieces, top and bottom. I will do a test fit and make sure they fit good together. I will paint the bottom pieces sky blue or grey (haven't decided yet) and the camo, RLM 70 and 71, on the top pieces . Then I just have to glue them together and mask off the yellow wing band things on the outer edges. Just hope it works. I'm also going to try an old painting trick for the canopy and save the masks for later use if I screw up the first time. More on this painting nonsense later…

Tomorrow is my last day before going back to work on Monday. I hope to have some progress and a few pics to post then. Thanks again for looking in and have a great Saturday night!!!

Prost
Allen

[minitnkr]

Nice start Allen. Work does get in the way, but does allow for shopping binges:smiling3:. PaulE

[yak face]

Great start Allen , it looks like a very nicely detailed kit . Cheers tony

[Allen Dewire]

Good Evening From a Wet and Rainy Bamberg,

Our weather turned to crap, but I did manage to make a little progress today. But first, a few thanks are in order…...

Work does get in the way Paul, but it is nice to have a mad money stash on the side too! Work pays the bills and mad money stash pays the hobby. Thanks for looking in my friend…...

Thanks Tony, I love Tristar kits! Their armor kits are kind of over engineered with loads of parts, but all their kits are very well detailed and Tristar's molding is very good too. I'm surprised that this kit has so few parts…...

I'm going to keep this short and sweet people……...

Well I thinned the hell out of the AK grey paint and got on with painting the office parts. I have some walk arounds to help me with the details and their colors. First is the base coat of grey,



Everything needed 2 coats and you can see the hood on the left still needs a second one. The roll cage and the firewall need a coat along with a few other pieces. I also have to finish painting the motor and the headers. Next up were the wings,



Had to be careful here because of the large sprue attachment points. Going slowly, they cleaned up nicely, but the fit of the top and bottom pieces need some fine tuning to achieve the fit I need for painting them apart. That did take a while, but in the end, I won the battle and my plan still might work.



The fit is not too shabby and they should glue together well after painting. The only bad point is the flaps and their mounting points that need to be glued to both wing pieces as seen below,



You can see the 2 notches on the top wing that are used to glue on the flaps. The 6 rectangular slots on the lower wing are for the flap mechanisms. I hope to glue them on the lower wing, ensuring they line up with the slots in the flaps when done. Could be tricky, but I think it will work. In my next post, I will show you what I mean with the flap mechs….

Don't know if the next few days will give me any table time, but I hope so! It is a short week as Friday is a holiday here so I get an extra day to play wing thingy. Thank you all once again for looking in and have a super week folks!!! All comments, good or bad are appreciated….

Prost
Allen