He-68

[Ed S]

The Heinkel 68 was typical of many mid-thirties fighter designs.  It was an all metal monoplane but still had an open cockpit and fixed landing gear.  A small number were used by the Luftwaffe.  But it did acheive some success with sales to various other smaller air forces in Europe.  By the outbreak of WWII, it was clearly outclassed as a fighter, but a number of them continued as light ground attack and CAS a/c.  Initially, they were armed with two 7.7mm machine guns, one in each wing firing outside the propeller arc.  Later, bomb racks were added under the fuselage and under each wing, all capable of carrying a 100kg bomb.  Alternatively, the wing racks could have a heavy 12.7 or 13mm machine gun pod mounted. 

The Lithuanian He-68 had the dubious distinction of being on the losing side during two invasions.  Initially fighting against the Germans when their country was invaded, and then later, the survivors flew along side the Germans against the invanding Russian forces.











I figure that I have been a member of this forum for over a year and a half, so I better build something with spats.  I think it's a requirement to be considered a real Whiffer.
Ed

[Ed S]

For those of you who might be interested in where this came from.  I started with a Crown He-111 in 1/144 scale.  I got it free when a friend was clearing out some models for someone he knew.  It had been started, but wasn't well done and some of the parts were missing.  So why not make it into a 1/72 scale fighter.  I cut off the old engines and filled in the wings.  I made the spats from scratch.  I cut three pieces of styrene for each.  A center piece with the full shape of the spats and two smaller pieces for the outside.  These were glued together and then filed/sanded to shape. The hump behind the cockpit was built up with epoxy putty.  The engine came from the spare parts box.  I think it may have been from a Heller Gloster Gladiator.

Here's what I started with.



Here are some in-progress shots.





Ed

[Logan Hartke]

Oh, very nice.  I like this a lot.  Very creative.

That He-111 wing is so nice, isn't it?

Cheers,

Logan

[batmancustoms]

 

[puddingwrestler]

Very cool. And you have reminded me that I have not yet built a plane whiff with spats (I've built SF models with spats, but that seems a bit like cheating)

[Brian da Basher]

My what lovely spats you have!

More pictures please. I think I'm in love.

Brian da Basher

[thedarkmaster]

Like it so very much 

[Weaver]

Well bugger oi down dead! I had EXACTLY the same idea about a week ago, but I didn't know of any 1/144th He-111 to base it on!

Nice job Ed! 

[noxioux]

OK, I guess I'll be the first one.  It's spat-tacular!

[ChernayaAkula]

  Hadn't you posted that pic of the He 111, I would have tried to look up He 68. It looks so very convincing!

[frank2056]

That's a great little piece of scale-o-rama, Ed! I actually looked up the "He-68" - it looked familiar, but i couldn't place it...

[Glenn Gilbertson]

Very creative and convincing!

[sequoiaranger]

Nice one, EdS!

Great minds run in the same gutter, I mean, rut.   I, too, made a scale-o-rama 1/72 "light" gunnery trainer from a 1/144 He-111 which I called the He-61 Culebra. I show it here in Argentine markings:



The engine is from an Arado Ar-96 trainer, and the spats (GOTTA have spats!) are from a Northrop Gamma.

[batmancustoms]

awesome!

[Ed S]

Nice one, EdS!

Great minds run in the same gutter, I mean, rut.   I, too, made a scale-o-rama 1/72 "light" gunnery trainer from a 1/144 He-111 which I called the He-61 Culebra. I show it here in Argentine markings:



The engine is from an Arado Ar-96 trainer, and the spats (GOTTA have spats!) are from a Northrop Gamma.

Nice.  One thing for sure, using a He-111 as the starting point, it's hard to call it anything but a Heinkel product.  That wing shape just screams Heinkel.

Ed