I liked the idea of doing a side by side build of late WW2 jets, so picked up a Meteor and a 162. What i didn't know was the Meteor i grabbed is circa '49 to early/mid '50's version of the Meteor, jets are definitely not my strong point In hindsight i needed an F.1 or F.3 Meteor, but it is what it is now.










The two paint schemes i will more than likely be doing










Sprues and size comparison between the two aircraft










I skipped a bunch of steps doing the cockpits and just went straight to end result. No PE parts or scratch made seatbelts, just oob. The 162 seatbelts look a bit gimmicky but i can deal with it. The instrument panels, i added some tiny drops of clear as the glass for the gauges for the first time and think it looks better with than without. The weights use will pop up in a few pics further down.
















He-162 rear wheel bay, nice little setup. Tamiya stuff just goes together so nicely, always.







Slice and dice for the rear wheel bay












He-162 fuselage together with the weight placed so it doesn't become a tail sitter








Tailplane fitted up and sitting on to check fitment








The winglets, known as 'Lippish Ears' From wiki - Following the end of World War II, Dr. Sighard F. Hoerner was a pioneer researcher in the field, having written a technical paper published in 1952 that called for drooped wingtips whose pointed rear tips focused the resulting wingtip vortex away from the upper wing surface. Drooped wingtips are often called "Hoerner tips" in his honor. Gliders and light aircraft have made use of Hoerner tips for many years.

The earliest-known implementation of a Hoerner-style downward-angled "wingtip device" on a jet aircraft was during World War II. This was the so-called "Lippisch-Ohren" (Lippisch-ears), allegedly attributed to the Messerschmitt Me 163's designer Alexander Lippisch, and first added to the M3 and M4 third and fourth prototypes of the Heinkel He 162A Spatz jet light fighter for evaluation. This addition was done in order to counteract the dutch roll characteristic present in the original He 162 design, related to its wings having a marked dihedral angle.









Wheel bay area and mounts for the engines in the Gloster












162 body vs Gloster wings









Gloster engine in parts and together. I intend to add some wiring and other little pieces to one of these so i can leave one engine exposed in the wing.













Like the engine, i will leave one of the gunbays open








The nose section is a sore point on this kit..just like the Airfix Sea Fury i recently finished apparently. The nose does not affix the front of the fuselage so scraping, sanding and cleanup is required to get a neat fit.









Getting the body together was a real tight fit and once again i would like to thank Tamiya Tape for the supporting role it has played so far in this kit. Engines test fit as well.











The wings had a rather large gap to fuselage which i did not want to muck around with filling and sanding and then losing details so, once again, i would like to thank Tamiya for its supporting role.










First primer coat, panzer grey followed by black with some preshading and full black underneath is prep for the silver lower half.













The engine that will be covered fitted, engine door glued, top of the fuselage needed some extra work and a reprime. From here the whole lot, especially the underneath, will get a light sand with some 2000 grit in prep for laying some colour. Once the Gloster is at that stage i will get the wings and engine assembly on the 162 and primed up.













So, hoarding. I said to myself it would never happen as i would build what i had in front of me, and possibly have a back up kit so i could either dual build or have something to look forward to. In the model shop the other day and this happened...














Looking forward to every single one of these at a later date! I also want to add a P51 to the growing cabinet collection but still haven't found the kit that has grabbed my eye yet.

Nice work Ajay (as usual!) I've heard good things about the Airfix Meteor (except the nose) and it shows here.

It's a rare modeller who doesn't develop a stash. Mine was getting out of hand so I agreed with Sarah that if I din't buy another kit for a year I could get another MFH 1/12 car for my next birthday. I've stuck to it and it arrives from Japan today ready for my birthday next month. My point is that I've enjoyed building from the stash, and other than a couple of new releases in the winter I'll be continuing to do so. There's too many good kits I've got stored away that I HAD to build next, then didn't!

Yeah, well, i guess i have finally and truely arrived to the modelling ranks The kit is nice, just that weird soft airfix plastic that is so different to the Tamiya and other brands. I've already a build order for the other kits, just wonder if i'll stick to it. Look forward to seeing your next build mate, pity there isn't a few more modellers here.

Great stuff, as usual.

You know, entry level stash addiction begins with 109s and Thunderbolts, be careful.

I have, since the Warhawk overload, done 4 P38s and 3 Mustangs.

I am in the midst of a motor pool expansion at present,1 car,1 jeep, a deuce and a half and a Greyhound armored car.
I also have an Airfix British fuel truck and a Utility truck in a Hurricane "ready for battle" kit.

The Hurricane kit is my second of same but the first one became a victim of impatience that only the vehicles, the ground crew guys and the dog survived.
It was the very small but detailed interior parts that drove me over the edge on that one.
Has that ever happened to you guys?
There are way more 1/48th vehicle options than there used to be but they have gotten expensive..

Looking forward to your finished Meteor.

Not yet Sunchaser, i'm sure i'll get there though


All the pieces for the 162 engine.





The bulk of the 162 primed or ready to be primed





Gloster engine bay and some of the 162 engine pieces







Engine base colour





Silvered and sitting in it's pod






After much cable stripping of left over cords in my cord box and no joy, i ended up using these bag twist straps for the engine piping, stripped off the plastic they were the perfect size i was looking for and shape really well.






Some small locating holes to hold the wire and some bending and painting and we have some detail










Finished, with some slight weathering to hopefully make it pop a bit more

Stunning as always, great work Ajay

Thanks mate


Silvered the Meteor. A couple of coats, let it sit overnight, then sand/smooth with some paper towel and a nice soft rag before giving it the final silver coat. 162 in its RLM76.







Some engine detail. I used these brake calipers off the Skyraider as they resembled pretty closely pieces attached the engine, painted and sliced them off, six circular pieces in total for the one engine.








RLM83 for the body of the 162 and one wing. A different and slighter darker mix than what i used on the Me262. One of the wings, part of the tailplane and the engine cover will be in RLM81 and 82, which are a brown violet and another shade of green.






Something like THIS but without the red engine cowl.




Last coat of silver on the Meteor, a slighter darker mix as i added one drop of panzer grey to about 10 of the metal colour. I'll do a slightly darker mix again once i smooth off this coat to show some streaking and a bit of wear. Starting to look ok, the white lights really over emphasise the glittery look of the paint. I also finished off inside the engine inlets in a slighter darker silver and polished them nice and smooth with cotton buds...and too much time on my hands

Topside paint on the Gloster. The box art differs slightly from the supplied paint scheme sheet, i went with the box art as the paint sheet design doesn't line up to true scale in some areas.

A mix of about 70% thinner with 30% paint at 10 psi for some weathering. Attempting to get the look of the box art streaking. Some areas, like the fuselage spine, i will tone back down when i move onto lightening some panels.

The Meteor nose is a constant pain Fit, refit, trim, refit, trim etc until it all sits flush. I had the nose sitting on nicely after trimming plenty of the front of the fuselage, add the undercarriage support and then the inside of the nosecone and the support needs trimming as it all fouls inside. Get that sorted and then the gear door does not fit properly and in turn needs sanding to suit as well as opening up the front of the wheel well.


















So, it all fits finally, just waiting for the nose cone paint to cure overnight and then i can put her on.

Difference between the silver straight out of the bottle when compared to the mixed silver with weathering.

Wheels assembled, need to be flatted out and some detail and weathering added





Tail yellowed, air brakes painted, wheels on and her first full fit up. The nose gap looks terrible so i bit the bullet and decided it had to be worked more.






Milliput to fill the gap.






Followed by some sanding and a layer of paint to see where it's at. Still some work to do, including my pet peeve, rescribing.





A final (hopefully) thin layer of Tamiya putty, a night of drying followed by sanding and some rescribing.





Rear engine nozzles added. Some retouching needed in a few areas of paint work on the wing trailing edges that i have sanded.

I'll just sneak this in here if no one minds. The meteor was a product of serious engineering, the Heinkel a desperate measure at best, that supposedly, amazingly, flew really well.

The first one with the dual Mk 108's...a couple of hits and a Meteor is falling apart. I wonder why they switched to the dual 20 mm in the next version? Availability? The Meteor had 4 20mm...

Anyway, a really cool comparative choice of WW II technology.

BTW, gotta love how you just couldn't stand that nose joint space and made it go away.

It really looked shocking, i should have sorted it all prepaint but the whole wheel assembly sort of gets in the way of masking. I've never been a Meteor fan, always thought it looked a bit sluggish and boring, but this build has me appreciating her lines and looking at it in a different light. The 162, not so much, bit of an ugly duckling imo although i'm sure she would have been a blast to have flown after being used to prop jobs.


Nose, much happier with it although my scribing is still a bit of a stumbling block.







Late war German wing affixing technology





Engine pod







Gloster wondering what that toy is in front of it

Decalling. First up, make your model as horrible looking as possible by putting on the pre decal clear coat. With the Gloster the clear really shows up how rough this plastic finish. If i was to do another one i would start by sanding down the complete outside of the kit before anything else.

Tail first. Each side of the tail has a six piece decal setup for the black outline. I was thinking of painting it but i'm very average at curved masking plus the tail rivets could cause leakage issues. Plan was to get the decals as close as possible and then to paint any gaps.







The decals in question are all of the lower middle thin black ones, roughly 92 through to 107.






When first applied they look a bit rough, some moving around and a night with some decal solution should help. The RAF flash i managed to slide under the black leading edge decal after slicing the top corner off.






After some paint touch up she is looking a lot better, still needs another few goes with the decal solution to sort out some creases. This side was the worst side regards gaps.





Wing walkway decals. I cut the clear middle section out of these as they sit over a bulge. Application is more fiddly but end result is better.












Still a few smaller decals to go but mostly done. Once it has done a night sitting it is time for another clear coat before an oil wash.






First one on the 162. The well older Tamiya decals are nicer than the Airfix ones, thinner, and they react better to the decal solution. I had to repaint the nose as my semi circle section was a bit off...but i could not remember my previous mix. You can see my attempted 'fade' under and to the rear of the cockpit, hoping i can hide it a bit more as i move on.

Quick addition, the 162 is starting to look somewhat decent with decals added

Donski. Couple of different lighting attempts here, you'll probably notice the difference in the shots. The Gloster i started to do an oil wash but the roughish surface of the kit didn't appear to like it so i pulled up after only doing a small section of the wing and wiped it off. I think it looks decent without it regardless, the 162 also missed out due to my preshading and some slight post shading being enough. Also, i had to put the Gloster alongside the 262 for a comparison.


In the box







Gloster first up



































Ze baby 162. I managed to drill the 30mm cannons out with my smallest pin vice bit, you can almost notice in some shots.






















Cheers all

Very fine work and great pictures Ajay !!

Really nice Ajay!

Cheers Mr Watson snd thanks Nixer. I tell ya, i would have kicked myself if i left that Gloster nose as it was. I'm glad i picked her up, my age old position of the Meteor being a boring old ugly duckling has officially changed to, well, she is rather pretty plane isn't she

The way you build Ajay she sure is..