A Super Spade

Heinkel He-111 KG 26

- Jeroen Burger Chu

The Heinkel He 111 was designed by Siegfried and Walter Günter at Heinkel Flugzeugwerke in 1934. Through its development it was described as a 'wolf in sheep's clothing, as due to restrictions placed on Germany after World War I prohibiting bombers, it masqueraded as a civil airliner, although from conception the design was intended to provide the nascent Luftwaffe with a fast medium bomber. Perhaps the best-recognised German bomber due to the distinctive, extensively glazed 'greenhouse' nose of later versions, the Heinkel He 111 was the most numerous Luftwaffe bomber during the early stages of World War II.

The machine I chose to build is a He-111H-6 (1H-GP) of 6/KG 26, which flew anti-ship missions from Italy during the summer of 1942. My attention was drawn to this machine because of the high contrast of the white identification markings with the overall RLM70 and 71 camouflage colours.

As with all my projects, this build started with riveting all the necessary parts: fuselage, upper and lower wings, and stabilisers. I found some good drawings on the Internet, which showed where the rivets were placed and I improvised somewhat here and there. I first set out all the rivet lines with pencil and then I rolled them freehand with my 'Rosie the Riveter' riveting tool. When that was done, the parts were sanded with 1200 grit waterproof sandpaper and brushed wet with a coarse toothbrush and dried with a microfiber cloth. This does the job nicely. A lot of people who I speak to in the modelling community are wary of riveting a model but it is actually a lot less challenging than it looks so my advice is to give it a try.