Heinkel He100D1 German Night Fighter

The He100D was actually intended to serve alongside the Me-109 but thanks to political infighting this never came to be. It's greatest contribution to the Nazi war effort was to instill fear in the allies by pretending there were squadrons of them. The Germans pulled this off by switching bogus squadron emblems on the handful of prototypes while at a pre-war airshow. The fact that it was in aircraft spotters profiles would indicate that the threat was taken seriously by the allies. This kit is one of Special Hobbies first real efforts to go beyond short run models, so if you expect a shake and go model, you'll be disappointed. However if the chance to do a unique subject and learn some new skills along the way appeals to you this may be for you. The cockpit is simple but nice and is painted mostly RLM02 gray-green with some red, black, silver and yellow details. The larger parts such as the wings and fuselage lack positive locators so making tabs and gluing them to the inside of long seams like the fuselage will help strengthen them. The color scheme is thought to be standard early war Luftwaffe colors of medium green, dark green and light blue. There are several different squadron markings but no evidence has been found to show any bands or differently colored spinners. The Germans did sell one of these planes to the Japanese and it was painted overall IJA Gray with six-position hinomarus but I have no more color data than that. It makes for an interesting companion model to a early Me-109 and I might do one more of these in a what if scheme to show what might have been.