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In order to start the process of "scratch building" any plane, spend a good amount of time doing your research. Today, you have an awesome tool at your disposal, called the Internet. There's a lot of very good information out there, if you only take the time to look for them. For my project, I spend about 4 weeks surfing all over the place and found the following very useful URL's: Plastic Model Kits: Probably the best "handle" you can get on your plane is to get a 1/48 or even better, a 1/32 scale plastic model plane. Only use them for approximate sizing and fitment. Many of the panel lines, rivets and interior details are less than adequate. For my project I was looking for a Fw190A6 variant (doing Anton "Toni" Hackl's plane) I have the following options:
But there are others you can find. Doesn't take too long to find out what's
out there. Also, check out Hyperscale,
our friends in the plastic model side for many scale works on the Fw190. Books: There's a large collection of books on the history and operation of the
Focke-Wulf FW190. For any serious scratch builder, these become invaluable tools
to determine what model and colour scheme to model the aircraft. Here' s a list of the books I assembled over a period of 3 months from various sources:
Of all the books listed above, the Aero Detail is the best, loads of pictures
of Fw190's around the world. No need to look at grainy Black & White
pictures. It's a must. It's hard to get, but you can purchase it from Japan
direct (don't worry, it has English text in it) from HobbyLink
Japan. All other books can be easily found on-line. Since I'm in Canada, I
prefer Chapters
for my books, but you can also try at Amazon. The plane I decided to build is from a Vailley Aviation Plan set. Roy Valliancourt is a very nice gentleman who has a web-site now which list all the plans (including the FW190) and some very useful parts, such as scale retracts, fiberglass cowl, canopy and an optional fiberglass fuse. There's another source, by Meister Scale. Their model is slightly larger but has essentially the same characteristics. The wood kit is available from 2 sources, All-American Kit Cutters and Precision Cut Kits. I went with the former and got a complete wood kit.
Oh boy, there are soo many. Since this web-site is dedicated to my plane that I'm attempting to build, we'll list some usefull ones for me. In reality I'm keen to do a Fw190A6 flown by Major Anton "Toni" Hackl, Major Hackl flew with the III/JG 11 at the time. Why this plane, it's different, and there's some controversy regarding the swastica being on the rudder or not. Some claim it was there, others claim it was painted over. Hmmm, need to do some further research here. Anyone out there that has original or scanned pictures of this plane, please, e-mail me. Anyway, I plan to follow the painting scheme being proposed by the Aeromaster decal company in their sheet.
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