1/32 Arsenal VB 26 Aigle de Mêr

--------------------

Silly Week 2008

A short time after the Second World War ended, the allies were searching near and far I Germany for aircraft, tanks and other technical equipment that could be of use.

The French armed forces received several different aircraft.  Most of those interested in that era have heard that the “Armée De l’Air” used both Junkers Ju 88’s and Focke Wulf Fw-190’s, and many have heard of the servicing and testing of Dornier Do 335 Pfeil, Heinkel He 162 and Messerschmitt Me 262 by Société Nationale de Construction Aéronautique du Centre (SNCAC) and Société Nationale de Construction Aéronautique du Sud-Ouest (SNCASO).

What few of us have heard before is that the Aeronavale also tested several planes of different types for the use onboard carriers.  Especially the “Aigle de Mêr” that was changed in several ways during the testing, and then set in production by Arsenal as the VB 26, Arsenal was a factory that was producing advanced planes before the war.

The basis for this plane was the German Messerschmitt Me 262T-1 Seeadler, a carrier based version of the Me 262 Schwalbe that Messerschmitt were developing for the German carrier Graf Zeppelin.

Most of us are familiar with the different A and B versions of the Me 262, but the T or Träger version is hardly known.

The Me 262 had several weaknesses that rendered it useless for carrier operations, and Messerschmitt had started to address some of these difficulties long before the war ended, but had not finished. Some points they had done with, one being the weak nose wheel leg, that had been strengthened and a different type of wheel used, a second was that of stowage room in a carrier, so they had looked at the Junkers Ju 87C witch had rearward folding wings in typical Grumman style, while their own Me 109T had no wing fold. The Seeadler had a wingfold insert as a straight line just outboard of the engine nacelles, where the wings folded upwards, the thin wing didn’t leave room for hydraulics, so a simple manually locked folding mechanism was designed and the folded wing had to be secured with a locking bar in the fold, again a necessity from the thin wing. A simple arresting hook had been added under the rear fuselage, and internal strengthening had been added, as well as a little external plates riveted to the outside of the fuselage, but this was kept to a minimum in order the keep the airflow as smooth as possible.

Arsenal in cooperation with SNCASO received just two of these planes, plus parts enough to construct several others. The main problem being engines, the Jumo 004B engine was to weak with its 1850 pound thrust, to short lived with 50 hours between major inspection and to slow to throttle reactions and was ruled out completely. A Pratt & Whitney JT-5 engine was bought and licensing rights were obtained. This engine had a 2500 pound trust, 150 hour between major inspections and most important, the engine could be throttled up almost instantly from slow speed, something you need for a wave off on a carrier.

Arsenal also changed the instrument panel to suit French needs and norms. The Me 262 was named Seeadler or “Sea Eagle” witch in French is Pygargue à queue blanche, but for ease Arsenal called the plane for Aigle de Mêr or Eagle of the sea. Several versions was considered, the VB 26C for Chaesseur, VB 26C/B for Chasseur/Bombardement (Fighterbomber), the VB 26 C/R for Chasseur/Reconnaissance (Fighter-reconnaissance).

A lesson learned from the Luftwaffe, was that the Mk 108 30mm machinegun was to slow firing to be efficient, so it was substituted with long barrel Hispano Mk 2 20 mm machineguns, with their higher rate of fire they gave the same weight of ammunition on the target, but with a better chance of achieving hits.

The R4M rocket used by the Germans was no longer in production, so the American 5 inch High Velocity Aircraft Rocket (HVAR) was used with provision for two under each outer wing.

The C and C/B version had an arrangement similar to the German Wikinger schiff bomb-racks under the nose. In case of the C for extra fuel and the C/B for fuel or two 1,000 pound bombs.

The 400 l. internal tank that some Me 262’s were fitted with could not be installed in the Me 262T or the VB 26 because of the internal structures for the arrester hook.

Click on images below to see larger images

Modelling the Arsenal VB 26

The Arsenal VB 26 is not available in model anywhere, so the starting point has to be a Me 262 in any scale. My model depicts an Arsenal VB 26 C/R that has the two 20 mm Hispano machine guns in the port side and a camera in the starboard side. The plane I chose to depict is No 9 that served onboard the Arromanches. The plane is Gloss Sea Blue all over with national markings like USN planes. On the tail is a Fin Flash with anchor, and the plane has a long white line along the fuselage and a squadron marking on the side. During the Suez crises it had black and yellow stripes added and for security reasons extra large national markings were added on the wings in the otherwise vacant places. These were almost 25% larger than the regular markings and placed a little closer to the engines and these also had the black anchor of the Aero Navale on top.

I decided to use the old Revell 1:32 scale kit as a starting point, I know the Hasegawa kit is better and the Trumpeter even better again, but Hasegawa is hard to find and the Trumpeter is too expensive to cut up for this.

I built the Me 262A-1a-U4 with the 50 mm Mk 114 gun some time ago. That kit also contained the parts for a Me 262A-1a-U3 reconnaissance version. These parts I saved for later use, and they came in handy now. The newer kit has a thin line engraved on the inside of the fuselage, marking where to cut, on the older one you have to measure yourself, and then cut away the piece to be replaced. I replaced the starboard side with the new piece having the camera opening, added the bulge on top giving room for the large camera.

The wings were folded on both sides and details were made in the wingfold, parts from a 1:48 F-104 that had been built wheels up came in handy together with sheet styrene and some plastic parts from the spares box.

A new nose gear was made with parts from the spares box, a main wheel from a 1:72 B-29 and retraction arm from a P-38 Lightning.

The rockets came from a Hellcat, and the tail hook is scratchbuilt. A single droptank is carried on the centreline just in front of the wheel wells.

Other detailing is the construction of an ejection seat with small parts from the spares box, a dorsal fillet for stabilisation and two new antennas, on fin like on the spine and a pod below the fuselage.

The cockpit was detailed with seatbelts and small details, the wheel wells were opened up to show the bottom of the homemade pressure cabin. The engine was changed some and also detailed with wires and pipes. Especially the ends of the engines differ quite a bit from the kit version.

All in all a fun build, and it would have been nice to se the plane for real, but it never happened except in my hobby room one time I was bored…..

Claus 

Click on images below to see larger images