All kidding aside it’s a good thing my story is a piece of fiction. As is
the Ta-183Z. I have built a few of the AmTech Ta-183's and think they are
wonderful kits. One day I was cruising the stash and started to daydream on how
a Ta183 Zwillig would look? Next thing I knew I pulled out the 2 copies I had
and took a closer look at how I could accomplish this. With the modular design
of the kit it was simple. I built up the 2 fuselages as normal. As well as the 2
outer wing panels. I chopped the very end of the other 2 wing halves off. I used
this as a template to glue on some thin sheet stock to make the wings airfoil
shape. Being careful to around the leading edge. At the vary front is a larger
diameter piece of sprue I found in the garbage bin from a completed kit. I cut
everything to shape. Sanded out the front of the wing, which needed lots of
filler to look smooth. I them was on to the tailplanes. I just used a piece of
thick sheet stock sanded into airfoil shape. My first thought was to do a tail
similar to the Ov-10 Bronco with no outboard fins. But once I placed it up there
it didn’t look right. I finally decided to just cut inner half of the kits
tailplane off and attach the straight middle section in between. Both conversion
parts were then scribed with some panel detail.
At this point I was going to do a Heavy Fighter version. But again I was
poking through the stash one night and came across my old Modelcraft F-82 which
was a semi-successful night fighter at the beginning of the Korean war. And
that’s when I knew I had to do it as a night fighter.. So I started to search
the spares bin. My first thought was a more normal German design with all the
aerials sticking out. But heck an advanced jet night fighter would never have
such a cluttered look. I decided to mount a pod ala the F-82 twin mustang. A
seach turned up an abandoned Airfix EE lightning front gear well which doubles
as a intake shock cone. The pointy cone was discarded and I attached a cut off
portion of a US bomb. I sanded it to fit the wing. Not to shabby for 30 min
work.
At this point I glued everything up and got it ready for paint. The paint
scheme is just something I thought looked cool yet was close to some real
Luftwaffe schemes. Decals came from the AmTech kits. They worked perfectly, more
like aftermarket in quality. I added a few unit insignia from an old Micro Scale
unit insignia sheet. Flat coat, add the fiddly bits, and a little weathering and
it was done.