Lippisch P.13a

Lippisch P.13a

ACT SMS Canberra, Australia

Revell, 1/48

(Politely presenting plenty of poppycock-packed paragraphs piously purporting to prove that pepperoni pizza and pinking shears promptly
propelled me pell-mell towards a pretty powerful and pretentious Lippisch epiphany)

It was, I believe, the Japanese company, Mauve, which first offered a model of Professor Lippisch's dart-like, coal dust-powered fighter to the modelling public. I recall reading about it in the modelling magazines at the time and blanching at the exorbitant retail price. Revell, to its everlasting credit, jettisoned the etched-metal frippery of the Mauve offering and reissued the whole thing in the polystyrene we all know and love. I bought my copy at an Interclub competition. This aircraft, of course, was not actually produced and did not fly. Thankfully for the Allies, the good Professor's design took to the air only as an unpowered glider, displaying sensational handling qualities. The glider model, produced by the Huma company, may still be found at swap meets fairly easily and makes a cheap and attractive addition to your Luftwaffe collection.

The relationship between scale modelling and pepperoni pizza is not readily evident to the casual observer. It is, nevertheless, certainly there.
Let me explain. Upon completion, Revell's Lippisch scarcely makes your pulse race. The design of the plane is intriguing enough, with the cockpit positioned midway up the sloping tail fin. But there are no gun barrels or ordnance and the plane, lacking undercarriage, needs to be displayed on an accompanying trolley-how was the damn thing supposed to get off the ground?!

Go ahead and put your Lippisch together as Revell has produced it, if that is your fancy, but it struck me that this model would be the ideal subject for the mother of all make-overs. But what could I do to bring a certain flair to the model? I slept on it, but tossed and turned all night trying to bring something truly unique to my Lippisch. I couldn't come up with any good ideas, so fell back on my traditional solution---one of Domino's excellent double pepperoni pizzas (with extra pepperoni) for dinner and then an early night. As usual, it worked like a charm. When I awoke I felt woozy, but my plan was clear, my intentions focussed. (I have never heard so much bullcrap in all my life. Ed)

No undercarriage? Well, let's give the damn thing a tricycle undercarriage, then. No gun barrels? What about two extra long cannon barrels projecting into infinity from the wings' leading edges? No ordnance? Then search through the spare parts box and festoon the thing with bombs, rocket tubes and fuel tanks cannibalized from a range of other kits. No radar? How about etched metal radar positioned somewhere? But of a certainty! Painting? Why does it have to be a German plane? Conceivably, a blockade-running, daring U-boat captain could have delivered a few examples to Japan, allowing it to operate the plane against the Allies over, maybe, the Himalayas if things had turned out differently. Another scenario is North Korea or even China operating a modified Lippisch received from the Russians against the US over the Yalu.

You don't often come across a model whose basic construction can be completed in an evening's sitting. But the Lippisch is such a kit.
Kick off the construction with the cockpit, as usual. It's pretty sparse, so try to improve it with perhaps a decal instrument panel stolen from another kit, something to replicate the seat cushion and a blob of putty around the base of the control column to simulate the leather dust sleeve. Another ideas would be to drill lightening holes in the seat and then give it a coat of matt silver and some shoulder straps, or knock up something from plastic card for the side consoles. Time spent sprucing up and weathering the cockpit will be well-rewarded as the model lends itself to an open canopy.

Revell seems to have thought that the pilot of your Lippisch would be a refugee from the Harlem Globetrotters, as the rudder pedals are a country mile from the pilot's seat. Don't even bother removing them as they can't be seen; make some new ones from scrap plastic and consider the use of flat dental floss for the foot straps. You can see daylight right through the Lippisch from nose to tail, so try to get hold of a couple of square centimetres of wire screen and some plastic card (even cardboard will do) to fit inside the round nose and at the back where the exhaust belches out.

Your pepperoni pizza dictated a tricycle undercarriage, so use a drill and your hobby knife to cut out the wheel wells. Keep them Germanically simple, blocky and square with no fancy curves unless you're really good at this. Forget about boxing in the wheel wells. Instead, scrounge a piece of silver paper from a cigarette packet, paint it a suitably sombre colour and cement it inside the wells to look like canvas. The main wheel wells and undercarriage are comparatively easy: I used 1/48 scale FW-190 oleo legs and wheels and knocked up some wheel well covers from plastic card. Less so the front wheel well. By all means have a go at it, but I decided to take the easy way out and gave my Lippisch a fixed and rather large front wheel attached to a length of spaghetti which was poked through a hole drilled in the belly of the plane.
Ordnance and other add-ons. What you need to do here is attach a striking combination of radar, antenna, bombs, rockets, cannons and fuel tanks that you have lying around unused. Remember, too much is barely enough.

The sky is the limit here. Straight line and length German colours would be okay, but lack a little originality. I decided to assign my Lippisch to Sgt. Tonkatsu Tabehodai of the Himalaya Corps of the Imperial Japanese Army, although the crack(pot?) North Korean Bulgogi Brigade (Daring Leader-ed by Comrade Colonel Kim Chee over the Yalu and Pyongyang in 1950) was a possibility right up to the last minute, but had to be discarded as I couldn't find gummed stickers of the faces of the then Great Leader anywhere (and no, I didn't contact the newly-opened Embassy of the DPRK!). It would have look great on the central fin, though.

Lower surfaces were given a coat of dark grey (Clint's Export Paint), with the upper surfaces first sprayed Brunswick Green and then very gently misted with black (both Export Paint), dark grey again (ditto) and white (Pactra) to produce a fetching speckled effect. The misting was very easy to do and was finished while I was waiting for the car to warm up one morning. A cool-looking upper and lower surface colour separation line was achieved by cutting a strip of masking tape with a pair of pinking shears.

But there are lots of other paint schemes you might to experiment with. What about silver all over with dark green speckled mottling on the upper surfaces? Phone Domino's.

A Japanese plane equals red rising suns, and aren't they easy to apply!? No prodding them into position with a brush as you have to do with German crosses. Then a number or two to give a little interest to the model. But it still lacked a certain something, so I decided to raid my Hasegawa 1/72 scale FW-190 model for some red-orange triangles to stick on the nose. I then had the biggest of all brainwaves! What about a huge Japanese rising sun flag with red and white rays on the vertical fin? First, out came the decal bank and a can of white spray paint. Which to use? I decided to try using a decal first and selected a plain white sheet that I had bought many years ago for $4. I trimmed a piece roughly into a square and slapped it on. Next, the red rays of the Imperial rising sun. 8 red rays in total, so each one must have 22.5 degrees of arc. I used a protractor to make a cardboard template and soon had 8 of the little fellows cut from a sheet of red decal. On they went with a little trimming here and there. Then onto the centre I slapped a white decal disk followed by a slightly smaller red one.

One side down, one to go. What to do with the other side? A chrysanthemum or cherry blossom gummed label would have been ideal, but none being available in the shops I toyed with the idea of another Japanese flag. No, rejected that for a stylized Japanese samurai sword guard in black and gold. First, a white decal field as with the flag side went on and then the sword guard was painted black and gold. Surfing on the net the other day, I came across a modeller who put the Japanese letters Den Koh Sek Ka on his Japanese fighter model, claiming that it was the motto of the pilot, meaning "Quick as lightning". Good enough for me, so I wrote them in gold paint on the sword guard.

Nothing of earth-shattering importance to report here. Weather your Lippisch in the usual way with copious amounts of drybrushing, pencil lead, powdered graphite and silver eye liner, concentrating on the wings' leading edges and panel lines, perhaps also with a little burnt sienna in the canopy and undercarriage area. Acrylic burnt sienna and raw umber are occasionally available and should be snapped up at what used to be Clint's in Tuggeranong at a very reasonable $2 for just about a lifetime's supply. A little "soot" from a stick of charcoal would also not go amiss.

If you've chosen to attach etched-metal radar to your Lippisch, it might be a good idea to do that now, rather than sooner and run the risk of snapping the damn things off. Other items, including delicate underwing antenna (try using propelling pencil lead gently sanded to a fine point) and suchlike, should also be attached at this stage.

And there you have it: Professor Lippisch's eye-catching brainchild, in the markings of its home country or perhaps masquerading in another's colours. A truly distinctive fighter with more than its fair share of pizza pizzaz.

Page created September 2, 2003