Junkers EF 1111, captured May 1945

[nönöbär]

Junkers EF 1111, captured May 1945

The aircraft:

In 1944, several German aircraft companies started to plan or even build various high performance jet fighter projects. Most of them were pure concepts that were never build, but a few of them were build or were under construction at the end of World War 2.

One of the almost unknown projects was the Junkers EF 1111, only recently discovered documents from Russian archives gave knowledge to this project. The EF 1111 was a high performance jet powered fighter aircraft that should replace the Me262 with a better performance and less need of strategic material. Design started in mid 1944 and in October 1944, the first prototype was started to build at the Junkers facory in Dessau.
While the fuselage of the aircraft was made out of metal, wings and control surfaces were made out of wood to save the usage of metal. Additionally, it was planned to decentralize the construction of the plane, using smaller wood workshops around the country to produce the wings and later transport them to the final assembly site.

When Dessau - and the Junkers factory there - was captured by Soviet forces in May 1945 the first prototype was almost ready to fly and it fell into Soviet hands undamaged. Many of the Junkers engineers, aircraft and uncompleted projects were moved to the Soviet Union after the war, so this happened to the EF 1111 prototype as well.
 The EF 1111 was assigned to the Lawotschkin design buro for further evaluation, and it was first flown under its control in January 1947, nearly one year ahead of the MiG 15. The aircraft showed good performance numbers, but crash landed after its 8the flight on May 8th, 1947.
 
Being satisfied with the aircraft, Lawotschkin used the EF 1111 to develop his Lawotschkin La 15 jet fighter. The main difference was that it was a all-metal construction compared to the metal/wood mix of the EF 1111.
 
 Up to August 1949, more than 200 La 15 were build, but construction was stopped in favour of the MiG 15.  At least one La-15 is now in a museum on display, but there are no traces left of the EF 1111.
 
Them model shows the first EF 1111 prototype captured by Soviet forces in May 1945.
       







                                                                           

The model:

This is a 1/72 scale Kooperativa kit of a Lawotschkin La-15. Being a Russian short-run kit, the production quality was quite bad. Some parts were almost not to be identified. So I dropped the plan to build this as a Lawotschkin LA-15 and tried to save what was left over of this kit and made the EF 1111 out of it.
After using several kilograms of putty on it (at least it felt so), the model was painted with Revel Aqua Colour. No decals were used.


 

[Spey_Phantom]

you really did a great job on what i can concider is  one of the worst modelkits out there.
i have built this one too, many years ago, and ended up in the trash not much later.

[PR19_Kit]

Magic! 

I love the idea of the wooden flying surfaces, very 'end of the war' scenario.

[NARSES2]

That's a really neat little diorama 

[nönöbär]

you really did a great job on what i can concider is  one of the worst modelkits out there.
i have built this one too, many years ago, and ended up in the trash not much later.

You are right, the kit was really awful. For some parts, you had a more or less solid block of plastic where you had to carve out the part.... 
I have made a few Russian made short-run kits so far, but this one was definitly one of the no-so-nice ones.

[Tophe]

Congratulations!

[TomZ]

Very good!

TomZ

[chrisonord]

Very nice,  maybe next time  you buy a solid  blick of wood and carve  your  own aircraft,  it could be much easier  i have a few cooperativa kits myself,  i will make sure  my chisels are sharp for when I  build  them. 
Chris.

[ysi_maniac]

That's a really neat little diorama 

100% agreed!