Arado whif

[maxmwill]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed, but, having acquired the Revell kit of the Arado E555(the price, for such a new kit  being very reasonable), I'd  been mulling over just what to do with this, as Luft 46 models are not quite my forte, nor of a whole lot  of interest for me. Still, after looking at the kit after it had arrived, an idea began to slowly germinate, and  this morning, I think I might have an idea just what to do with this.

Shortly after the war, Operation Paperclip had commenced, and among the scientists and engineers gathered up and shipped to the US was Alexander Lippisch, who was quickly snapped up by Convair, and who had helped develpo the XF92, and the subsequent Convair Dellta winged aircraft which the Air Force grew to love and adore. Dr. Lippicsh's works lived on after his death in popular culture with two fictional aircraft, the Bv138 transport, seen toward the end of the first Indiana Jones movie(and yes, you can get an RC model of this now, and it is a pretty nice little sport scale flying wing whif), as well as the fictional transport used by the Red Skull at the end of the first Captain America movie. Being very familiar with the works of Dr. Lippisch, both designs bear his fingerprints, posthumous though they may have been.

Anyway, suppose that months after war's end, say around 8 months or so, deep in the Bavarian Alps, a cave was discovered, a very large cave that had been hollowed out by Arado and the RLM to build a  strategic bomber, the E555. Hey, if the Red Skull was able to get away with it, along with countless Bond villains elsewhen and elsewhere, why not?

And, as Convair, having prevailed with the B36 with Curtiss Lemay, had Dr. Lippisch, who was, at the time(the Horten Brothers having been split up and going their separate ways) the pre-eminent expert on flying wings from Germany, get first crack at this, as soon as Army Intelligence had finished with it.

What was discovered that Arado had been secretly building was the first version, the 6 engine E555 1, which had 6 engines, as the originally proposed BMW 109-018 turbojets had proven to be more problematic than anticipated, and so, Convair, armed with 6 J35s, and later J47s(which was a development of the '35) had Dr. Lippisch lead the team to develop this into Convair's next proposal to the Air Force as a replacement for the B36.

While this might look interesting in polished aluminum with the stars and bars of the Air Force as a test bird, I'm thinking more along the lines of Convair colors, say an overall white, or similar color scheme.

[tigercat2]

I had the same thought several years ago:  http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,7066.0/highlight,arado+e+555.html

There is another E555 done up in a very nice NMF scheme in this forum as well.


Wes W.

[maxmwill]

Do you have anymore photos of that?