4 weeks, 7 whifs #1: Bf 109 K-2y

[comrade harps]

Messerschmitt Bf 109 K-2y
White 7, 1./JG 27
Brünn (Brno) Czechoslovakia, April 1945
Pilot unknown



The forensic study of Bf 109 variants has absorbed the minds of professionals and amateurs alike. One of the most controversial versions about which there was little agreement for many years is the Bf 109 K-2y. While the K series was meant to bring a high degree of commonality across the several companies and plants responsible for Bf 109 production, the results were often messier than desired.




In this context, photographs of aircraft such as 1./JG 27's White 7 taken at Brünn (Brno) Czechoslovakia in April 1945 have given the post-war experten, rivet counters and JMNs apoplexy. There is just so much wrong with this plane and others like it: they appear to have the smooth cowlings and underwing FuG 16ZY antenna of the G-10 plus the dorsal antenna of the G-6 and G-14, yet they also have the outer undercarriage doors and tailwheel arrangement of the K-4. And what's with the ventral DF loop? 109ologists have misidentified and debated these odd aircraft for years.





It took the Lithuanian-born aircraft photographer and author Yefim Gordon to finally resolve the issue. Using evidence found deep within archives in Berlin and Moscow, Gordon confirmed the reality of a hereto mythical `109 version: the Bf 109 K-2y. While much has been made of the G-10 being the "fuzzy bunny aircraft of the Erla factory," (built to keep production lines active and deliveries flowing in the transition from building the G-6 to the K-4), the transition at the Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke (WNF) factory had been overlooked by previous researchers.




Gordon found that these mystery '109s were the product of WNF as it also transitioned from the G-6 to the K-4, doing so uniquely via G-10 and the K-2. Dubbed the Bf 109 K-2y, WNF built a batch of 189 all-weather K-2y as they came to the end of its contracted G-10 production run and awaited full K-4 tooling and components. Having built G-6N and G-10N night fighters, WNF had been contracted to produce the K-4N and K-4/U4 N night fighter versions of the basic K-4 day fighter. However, the 22 August 1944 Separate Peace with the Western Allies saw this contract cancelled as the need to defend Germany against the RAF night bombing campaign evaporated. Instead, WNF was ordered to produce standard K-4s, but supply shortages and delays in the delivery of tooling and parts in the chaotic first few months of the post-Nazi era meant that the company lacked the required hardware.  Forced to improvise, WNF gained approval to manufacture a batch of K-2s, this being a proposed interim version that the Luftwaffe had passed over in favour of the full-spec K-4. Like the K-4, the K-2 was powered by the DB605 D-2, but lacked all the airframe modifications of the K-4. Although the need for an anti-bomber night fighter version has receded, WNF had a stock of the necessary avionics for the K-4N and was instructed to add these to an airframe that was somewhere between the G-10 and the K-4, thereby producing an all-weather version of the otherwise abandoned K-2.

[comrade harps]

I built 7 models in 4 weeks over June and early July. I won't necessarily present them here in order, but I will display them all. These 4 weeks included 3 weeks of holidays wherein I was feeling a tad too poor to do anything else but to stay home and rip through the stash (although 5 of the 7 I'd just acquired for $5 to $7 each at the Australian Model Expo 2019 - so, lots of old Heller kits!)

Stay tuned for 6 more...

[zenrat]

Can't wait.

This is very good.   

[NARSES2]

Neat