The Little World

She ain’t what she used to be.

The 199 had the name of Mezek in Czechoslovakia – that meant ” mule “. In Israel it was officially a ” Sakeen ” or ” knife “. It was unofficially a Messer…which is pretty good because that means ” knife ” in German and it was the result of the Messerschmitt airframe anyway.

The single-seat fuselage is likely to be  Messerschmitt rather than an Avia as it has a sharper front engine profile and a slight change to the tail. But near enough is good enough if I round off the front engine profile and shift the intake to the starboard. At least I have the benefit of seeing the real plane on the net in photos from Israel. There have also been a number of kits of it built by good modellers.

Not quite certain what to do with the spare two-seater fuselage as it lacks wings, tailplane or canopy. Painted up in the scrap heap at least makes use of it.

Note that the fit of the wings was excellent with very little fettling and minimal putty. No putty on the tail. Also note that the characteristic tailplane struts you see on the Me109 has not carried forward to the S-199.

By the time that we got to the first undercoat there were enough bells and whistles on the fuselage to make it an interesting representation. I’m even going to put on a ferry tank, though they were not used for combat.