Heinkel He 162A-2 "Volksjäger"

Kit:DML, 1/72; model finished on 2025-04-28.
Aircraft:"Yellow 11", W.Nr. 120074, Stab I./JG 1, Luftwaffe, Leck (Germany), May 1945.
He 162 in 1/72

He 162 in 1/72

The Heinkel 162 was a last-ditch effort by the Luftwaffe to provide a jet fighter that could be constructed with minimal effort. Many aircraft made it to operational service (with JG 1), but it is unclear whether any kills were scored. The aircraft I chose to model served with Stab I./JG 1 and was flown by Oblt. Karl-Emil Demuth, an ace with 16 kills (obviously none of them on the He 162).

From the scale modeling standpoint the particular aircraft my model depicts is a good choice: These are several wartime pictures of this aircraft. Most He 162 books [e.g., 12. p.124] have pictures from the left side; [16, p.31] also has a picture from the right side.

He 162 in 1/72

He 162 in 1/72

He 162 in 1/72

He 162 in 1/72

Construction Notes

I started this model way back in 2009, made some initial progress, but then put it aside and more or less forgot about it. Over the years, I lost the instruction sheet and the decals. I have the Kagero book on last-ditch German efforts [18], it came with a decal sheet that would have offered some options. In early 2025, after acquiring the great book by Forsyth & Creek [12], I decided it was finally time to complete the model; this took considerable effort. I also have the Special Hobby kit waiting in my stash in case I want to build another He 162; its decal sheet offered further options.

The kit is similar to many other DML offerings I have seen: accurate, but engineered in a way that makes construction cumbersome. Apart from having to be really careful to make parts fit property, probably the biggest headache was the ventral fuselage surface between the main wheel wells. This was provided as a separate part that kept breaking off; eventually I made my own part from 20 thou styrene sheet using my Cricut cutter. My advice would be to leave attaching this part to the very end, just before painting.

Some photo-etch parts were provided. Of note is the instrument panel which could just as well have been made from plastic: I needed to paint it, after which I had to hand-paint the instrument dials anyway. As far as the cockpit goes, I also needed to add some detail to the ejection seat, and finally I added photo-etch seatbelts from an Eduard sheet.

The kit's flimsy pitot tube (in the nose), molded as part of one of the fuselage halves, had long since broken off, so I added a new one made from steel wire. I drilled a hole in the nose and attached the part with superglue. I did the same thing with the ventral antenna behind the main gear wheel wells.

Kit's wheels/tires needed some work. Apart from having to remove the mold seam, there were some indentations that needed to be filled; I did that with Mr. Surfacer. The hole for the axle on the wheels had much larger diameter than the what was on the landing gear legs. Retrospectively, it would have made sense to get the CMK resin wheel set.

Camouflage & Markings

I first wanted to model an aircraft that was not fully painted. At the end of the war, Luftwaffe aircraft were painted with whatever paints were available (for example, aircraft had both RLM 65 and RLM 76 on them), and sometimes not painted at all except for some primer. There are plenty of photos of He 162s with some fuselage panels either unpainted or merely painted with some primer, and with panel seams puttied over. Some sources [12, 18] claim the panels were unpainted aluminum, and that the seam putty was some grayish color, but the instruction sheet for Special Hobby's He 162 kit claims the unpainted areas to be "light green/gray primer" (so maybe RLM 02) with the putty being red. After some experimentation, I gave up as I could not produce an effect that would look the same as in photographs. Instead, I chose an aircraft with the "standard" He 162 camouflage pattern: Most sources suggest RLM 81 and RLM 82, but [21] actually quotes RLM 71 (single upper surface color). Regarding the two-color scheme, again most sources claim that only the starboard wing and the engine nacelle were RLM 81, but [22] suggests that also the starboard horizontal tail would have been.

Note that [12] claims the engine intake was unpainted natural metal whereas [11, 17] suggest it was yellow. The kit instructions say it could have been yellow, red, or natural metal. From black and white photographs it is hard to tell.

I assumed that the landing gear legs were RLM 02. If you look at museum pieces, the colors vary (RLM 02 vs. RLM 65 or 76). [1] suggests that the main gear legs would have been RLM 66. I also painted the wheels with RLM 02.

My earlier note about the confusion over RLM 81/82/83 very much applies. Also, Mr. Color's rendition of RLM 81 needs to look more brownish. These are the colors/paints I used:

Camouflage: RLM 82Mr. Color RLM 82 (#123)
Camouflage: RLM 81Mr. Color RLM 81 (#121) mixed with some brown (#22) and black
Camouflage: RLM 76 & RLM 65Mr. Color RLM 76 (#117), Mr. Color RLM 65 (#115)
Cockpit interior (dark gray)Tamiya German Gray (#XF-63)
Wheel wells, etc.: RLM 02Mr. Color RLM 02 (#??)
Natural metal areasAlclad Steel (ALC 112), Alclad Dark Aluminum (ALC 103)
Nose striping (red)Tamiya Flat Red (#XF-7)

I took some of the decals from the Special Hobby He 162 sheet, made some myself, and painted the rest of the markings:

  • Balkenkreutze: Masked with Oramask and painted
  • Nose stripes: Masked with Tamiya masking tape and painted
  • Unit emblem, tactical numbers, and the small numbers "3" in the tail: Decals from the Special Hobby sheet
  • Swastikas, JG 1 red arrows, kill markings, and Werkenummern: Decals I printed myself (see below)

I was going to take the Swastikas from an old FineMolds sheet, but after realizing they were rather thick, I made my own. The kill markings and the Werkenummer I also made myself and printed (in white); the Special Hobby decals for the kill markings were too big and the Werkenummer was done using a wrong font. Finally, after noticing that the JG 1 red arrows from the Special Hobby sheet were too pale I also made my own decals for those.

As per usual, Alclad Klear Kote Gloss under and over all the decals, but this time I finished with Klear Kote Flat.

He 162 in 1/72

New 20 thou styrene sheet part in place between the wheel wells.

He 162 in 1/72

Painting the wheel wells with RLM 02.

He 162 in 1/72

Painting upper wing Balkenkreutze and priming the nose.

He 162 in 1/72

Painting the areas that look like patch paint in photos.

He 162 in 1/72

Special Hobby's red arrow decal: too pale..

He 162 in 1/72

My red arrow decal: better color.

References

Despite its short service life (if you can even call it that), the He 162 is extremely well documented. Here are the main references I used (my library database tells me I have well more than 50 books and articles about this aircraft):

  1. Aeroplane Monthly April 2010
  2. Air Enthusiast June 1972
  3. Cockpits deutscher Flugzeuge - Historische Instrumentierungen von 1911-1970 (Cohausz); Aviatic Verlag 2000
  4. Flugzeug Classic Februari 2015
  5. Flugzeug Classic Dezember 2015
  6. German Aircraft Interiors 1935-1945, Vol.1 (Merrick); Monogram Aviation Publications 1996
  7. German Aircraft Landing Gear (Sengfelder); Schiffer 1995
  8. German Fighters in the West - from Poland to the Defence of the Reich (Meyer & Stipdonk); JaPo Publishing 2022
  9. German Jet Aces of World War 2 (Morgan & Weal); Osprey Aircraft of the Aces 17; Osprey 1998
  10. German Jets 1944-1945 (Griehl); Luftwaffe at War 10; Greenhill Books 1999
  11. He 162 Volksjäger Units (Forsyth); Osprey Combat Aircraft 118; Osprey 2016
  12. Heinkel He 162 Spatz - From Drawing Board to Destruction: The Volksjäger (Forsyth & Creek); Classic Publications 2008
  13. Heinkel He 162 "Volksjäger" (Nowarra); Schiffer Military History; Schiffer Publishing 1993
  14. Heinkel He 162 (Myhra); X-Planes of the Third Reich; Schiffer 1999
  15. Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (Maloney et al); Aero Series 4; Aero Publishers 1965
  16. Heinkel He 162 (Griehl); Luftwaffe Profile Series 16; Schiffer 2001
  17. Heinkel He 162 (Smith & Conway); Profile Aircraft 203; Profile Publications 1971
  18. Last hope of the Luftwaffe: Me 163, He 162, Me 262 (Pasieczny et al); Mini Topcolors 37; Kagero 2013
  19. Luftfahrt International Nr. 24 (Nov/Dez 1977)
  20. Luftfahrt International Nr. 25 (Jan/Febr 1978)
  21. The Modeller's Luftwaffe Painting Guide (Smith et al); Kookaburra Technical Publications 1979
  22. Official Monogram Painting Guide to German Aircraft 1935-1945 (Merrick & Hitchcock); Monogram Aviation Publications 1980
  23. Volksjäger (Smith & Creek); Monogram Close-up 11; Monogram Aviation Publications 1986
  24. World War Two Jet Fighters (Berliner & Karlström); Scale Reference Data; Kalmbach Books 1982

Artwork to replace the unacceptable Special Hobby decals in the tail. When printing white decals, one actually swaps the black toner cartridge with the white one, thus one has to print in black.

Artwork to cut masks for the Balkenkreutze. This and the decal artwork are in 1/72nd scale (when you print/cut), so if you are building in some other scale, you have to do some scaling

Surviving Aircraft

At least eight He 162 airframes (of the maybe 120 built) survive today. Below are some of my pictures from various museums. Note the variety of markings and colors in these photos. Obviously the aforementioned confusion over the shades of green is evident here as well.

He 162

He 162A-2 (W.Nr. 120230) at the NASM Paul E. Garber facility, photographed in 1995. I consider this the only "real" source as it is here in unrestored condition.

He 162

Another shot of the NASM aircraft. Note the darker blue patches (RLM 65, ostensibly) and the seam between the fuselage and the nose cone.

He 162

He 162A-2 (W.Nr. 120015) at Musee de l'Air's, photographed in 2000. Note the very light shade of green. The aircraft has since been re-restored in more accurate markings [1].

He 162

He 162A-2 (W.Nr 120227) at RAF Hendon, photographed in 2010.

He 162

He 162A-2 (W.Nr. 120077) at Planes of Fame, photographed in 1993. The light blue areas on the engine nacelle are not supported by any photographs I have seen, except for the aircraft test flown at Edwards AFB after the war.

He 162

The Planes of Fame aircraft in 2017, repainted at some point with a lighter green color and with even more light blue on the nacelle.


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