Fernando's Dragon 1/48 Bachem Ba349A Natter w/Tower

[Fernando N]

Hi everyone,

With little over a month before the end of this GB, I thought of adding one more to the mix:


Not many parts for the rocket, the most of the plastic goes to the launch tower:


Being a rocket powered interceptor sort of like the Me-163, but this snake had rockets as armament and the pilot got back by detaching the rear fuselage and glided down in the front section using parachutes.
More info is here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachem_Ba_349

With a simple construction of the office, the handful of parts were put together in an afternoon.
Just have to break out the filler to get a wooden smooth surface as the major bits have some seams to contend with:

Thanks for looking in.

Fernando

[Steve Jones]

Thanks for throwing your hat into the ring with another build for the GB. No idea what it is but I dont envy you doing that camo scheme. :smiling5:

Good luck my friend

[Guest]

No idea what it is

An idea for a last-ditch, very cheap defensive fighter to ward off the hordes of Allied bombers attacking Germany. To save weight, cost and raw materials, it was mostly made of wood and had no undercarriage, for example — which is why it has a launch tower. Armament was limited to a load of rockets in the nose, again cheap and cheerful.

[yak face]

Great choice Fernando , a fascinating ,desperate late war project .

No idea what it is

Basically Steve make a giant firework out of wood ,pack it with explosives and rocket fuel , sit a man on top and fire it up a telegraph pole , what could possibly go wrong ? :thinking::anguished:

[Guest]

what could possibly go wrong ?

About the only thing I can think of is that the nose cone might not separate well enough for the pilot to be ejected after the flight …

Oh, and the brake chute might not deploy well enough for the pilot to be ejected after the flight …

Oh, and the thing may not be very stable in flight …

Oh, and …

[Jim R]

Hi Fernando
Well that's a new one on me. Desperate times clearly produced desperate ideas :rolling: I was going to ask about the nose cone but Jakko has cleared that up. Like Steve said the camo will be fun.
Jim

[Fernando N]

Evening all,

Steve, thank you :thumb2: Jakko already said it I see, one thing to mention though the rear was to parachute to the ground too as it contained the expensive bits.
The mottle is going to be fun, just two colours:smiling:.
Jakko, thanks for supplying the info:thumb2:.
Tony, thanks :thumb2: sounded like you were giving a description one of Willy E’s ACME rockets:tongue-out3:.
Jim, I saw it in a Youtube docu some years back and then found this kit at a show, claimed it as soon as I saw it.
Great little dio on its own too btw.

With the other hobby (running) taking more prominence in my spare time and counting down to the Rotterdam marathon, my first whole one:nerd:
I managed to assemble most of the bits in the left over minutes…
Completed the office with some more colours and added the pe seatbelts and throttle.
The metal for the seatbelts was a tad on the thick side but pliers and a sturdy tweezer bended those in shape without any hassle:


With a low parts count assembly of the rest of the rocket was easy as was the launch tower and base.
The tower only needed to be corrected when I had the guide rails on as they looked twisted, carefully broke them free and then taping them on the cutting mat with the rest of tower glued on gave the proper alignment:smiling:.

The two halves of the base had a step at the join, so it was putty time again to smooth it out and a bit of the groundwork will cover up the rest:


Booster rockets will be added last as will the external pe bits:

Having so much base space empty, I’ve ordered some Luftwaffe figs and a Kettenkraftrad to busy up the whole scene and turn this one into a nice dio:smiling4:.

Thanks for looking in.
Fernando

[Allen Dewire]

Hey Fernando,

I thought I had commented earlier, but was wrong. A great kit and a really good start on an interesting piece of late war weaponry. The big fact of the matter was the only manned test flight of the Natter ended, uhhh, not too good for the test pilot I'm afraid. He didn't survive….

Can't wait to see your baby with some paint on it.

[Fernando N]

Evening all,

Allen, thanks mate :thumb2:and too bad for the pilot, if it worked fine it must have been one hell of a plane to defend against if you’re a gunner on a B-17.
Pics with paint coming up, wanted to do this Wednesday but the provider dropped the ball on me and yesterday was a runday so…:rolling:

With things happening to the world these days and the effects have hit my country too, have left me a bit course less the past weeks…
Good thing there is model making to keep ones head straight and have some fun moments as all other events have been cancelled till June, but it’s a small price to pay to keep the virus manageable here in Holland.

Given the base and the Natter their base colours with the AB.
Traced the camo pattern on the Natter with a 6B pencil, only had to make sure the pencil line was completely covered, all other pencil I have are too hard to leave a line on a sprayed surface:

Right side was a bit of a guess, as Dragon didn’t included it in the painting instructions but this scheme is fiction anyway so what.
Not too bad for a single run and a couple of touch-ups:



Hopefully I can get more done this weekend on the base if can find some inspiration for the groundwork, sure as hell not going to make the deadline:smiling5:.
Stay safe and healthy everyone and have a great weekend.
Fernando

[Allen Dewire]

Hi Fernando,

Nice job on the squiggly lines of the camo. I guess you had to have a steady hand to get them drawn on the natter. Did you shoot them with a 0,2 needle??? They look good my friend…..I'm not going to make the deadline with my Storch either...…………….

I go back to work on Monday. Take care and stay safe too.

Bleib Gesund
Allen

[Guest]

Looking good, and as for groundwork, I don’t think you can go really wrong with, say, a grassy area with maybe some worn-down paths or areas on it?

As for finishing before the deadline … can I join the club?

[Fernando N]

Good afternoon,

Allen, thanks buddy :thumb2: , I traced the lines with a pencil first and then a couple of passes with a 0.15mm needle and a fanged tip.
The latter one lets you spray really close to the model:smiling:.
Jakko, thank you and for the tip too:thumb2:, went for something like that inspired by the wooded area near Naarden:hugging-face:.

Slowly and steadily I managed to complete this lot in the past month, thought about posting the progress a couple of times but I managed to forget it.…guess I’m getting old too:rolling:

So a little warning many pics on the way...
As a means to populate the sparse base and adding interest, I went for the whole Tamiya set with it’s winter figures:

The figs are a nicely moulded bunch from ICM with the other bits for Tamiya’s own assortment, completed the Kettenkraftrad in a weekend, and the sprue lay-out is really thought out for painting the tracks and wheels still on:



Next were the decals for the Natter, the smaller ones were ok to use but the white crosses had turned into yellow…
Since they are from 1993 not so surprising, cut down some from an Extradecal sheet to the proper size and these were puzzled on:

Test set-up:

A light wash for the panels and a coat of matt later, the last pe bits for the fuselage went on:

With their base colours and skin tones on, the figs needed some pigments to really bring out the last details in the faces with the guard having the best one IMHO:thumb2::


Figures are pretty easy to build too, some flash to remove and a touch of filler here and there but nothing serious to get a great result.

The base received some sand, stones, grass, foam and other railroad stuff to achieve the end of winter in the woods look I was after:smiling4::

Only a couple of things to add:nerd::

Figs had a pin in their feet for easy instalment, made a hose for the airbrushing mechanic, some paints and white sand added later on for the odd colour bits and a tree stump to fill a blank spot, calling this one done!

I present you: ‘’Good no swastika on my new toy’’



Many thanks for Steve and Si for organizing this GB and giving me the incentive build this odd one too:thumb2::thumb2:.
I’ll add more pics in the completed section shortly.

Thanks for looking in and have a great weekend everyone.
Fernando

[Steven000]

Looking very good Fernando! :thumb2:
Steven

[yak face]

Fantastic work fernando , the base looks excellent now with all the figures , looking forward to the completed pics , cheers tony

[Guest]

Fernando some how I missed this build so really sorry.
Great idea and the detail like the guy spraying is spot on.