1/72 Airmodel Products & 1/48 Planet Models DFS Habicht E

Gallery Article by Thomas Brückelt on Dec 15 2017

 

      

On the 1st of September 2017 I had the great chance to fly the replica of the DFS Habicht, built by Tilly and Dieter (owners) and some more members of the Flugsportverein Vaihingen (Aeroclub in south/west Germany).

Here is a video of my first flight with it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWUr0pq_u4w

The DFS Habicht E was the first glider with full aerobatic capability worldwide.  It was designed by Hans Jacobs in 1936.

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I wanted to be thankful to Tilly and Dieter and made their great historic glider as a model for both of them. I chose the very accurate kit from Airmodel Products in 1/72 for them.

There are not much words to say about making the Airmodel kits, because I made a video of the assembly. I also mixed some scenes of the real one and a simulator model I made together with Pascal Dumat and Wolfgang Piper for the very realistic Vehicle Simulator (
www.hangsim.com): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxmVjYH3I6g

The 1/48 kit for my own collection from Planet Models has a realistic looking surface. Most details have to be built from scratch. The nose must be modified on the upper side, it´s much more rounded. I added a pilot figure to the cockpit. I lot of work must be done on the wings: The buckling must be moved ~13 mm in direction of the fuselage and the outer wings are in a wrong angle - the dihedral must be negative, not positive!

All models were painted with brush. I used ivory (41, Humbrol) and a mixture of yellow (314, Revell ~95%) and orange (30, Revell ~5%) for the stripes.

I printed the decals by myself and sealed all models with clear, silk varnish.

I enjoyed making very much those models, as they remind on one of the coolest glider ever built! Only three DFS Habicht are flying today, all are replicas in Germany.

On the website of the aeroclub Vaihingen you can find pictures of the D-6868 and read how it was made (in German): 
https://www.fsv-vaihingen.de/technik/habicht/

Greetings

Thomas Brückelt

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Photos and text © by Thomas Brückelt