Painting:

 I started off by airbrushing the top of the wings and tail surfaces RLM 83 bright green. Once dry I masked the wing roots and then airbrushed the fuselage an overall coat of RLM 76 light blue,  once dry I airbrushed a very light coat of RLM 02 grey to obtain a slight greenish/yellow colour. This is a very difficult colour to explain and  obtain but is very similar to British sky. This may be the shade referred to in some recent references as RLM 84. I then airbrushed the mottle scheme of RLM 81/83 on the fuselage following the patterns of the aircraft. This scheme was well documented by Ron Belling in an old issue of S.A. Man magazine. Once the fuselage was dry I masked to enable the under surfaces to be painted. I sprayed the section of the engine nacelles in RLM 82 dark green. The wheelwells and drop tanks were painted aluminium and then the entire aircraft was sprayed with Microgloss in preparation for decalling.

As these aircarft were pretty new I did not apply any weathering to my model, preferring to leave her clean. All decals were applied and reacted well to the Microset system.  Note that the aircraft number was skew on the left hand side. Once all decals were set a coat of Microflat was applied. All masking was removed and final cleanup performed.

Although the Hasegawa Me262 kit is old, the basic shapes are there and it can, with extra work be turned into a superb replica of the original. There are many different viewpoints as to the validity of releasing old kits with new parts but this does not detract from the fact that we are modellers and  should be prepared to put some effort into our models. This was my first "Hi-Tech" model and I found it very interesting to build. I was pleased with my results and this monster now resides in pride of place in my display cabinet. With the advent and growth of Trumpeter and their 32nd scale range I am certain we will see a new tool Me262B in the future.

Please note: the colours quoted for the fuselage are incorrect, but was based on information available at the time. See the main article and the Gallery.