Dragon's 1/48 scale
Focke-Wulf Ta 154 V1

by Roland Sachsenhofer

Focke-Wulf Ta 154 V1

Hobby Boss' 1/48 Fw 190 V18 is available online from Squadron.com for only $36.99!

Shortage of raw materials and the obvious and impressive success of De Havilland’s Mosquito led to the effort to develop a “wooden wonder” for the increasingly pressurized Luftwaffe. One of these attempts to get initiative back can be found in Focke Wulf´s project 154. Conceived as a twin engined “fast bomber” made from more than 50 percent wood, it should be turned into a night fighter by 1942.

First flight occurred in July 1943 and showed no major problems. The project- now named Ta-154 in favour of Kurt Tanks ambitious personality- did possess capability, so it seemed at least.

My model depicts “TE+FE”, the V1 used for trials in Langenhagen in 1943. For the maiden flight the V1 was equipped with Jumo 211F engines, which produced 1340 HP, two Jumo 211N would be installed later which allowed to accelerate to respectable 680 Km/h.

Severe problem did arise around the adhesive “Tego-Film” which did destroy the wood around the bonding surface. Even when this matter was solved later, the Ta-154 reputation had suffered badly -and should never recover completely.

The final blow came in form of the Do 335 and Heinkels He-219. With the RLM opting for these rivals, production of the Ta-154 stopped after around 30-50 production machines of the A series; the exact number of Moskitos produced is not available nowadays.

The Ta-154´s production on my workbench did stop after just two examples, one as the V1, shown in this article, as flown in Langenhagen in mid- 1943 and another, an A-0, being tested in Erfurt in 1944

The Dragon kit offers a trouble free and rather easy build, the kit provides a selection of etched parts and excellent decals; after all I can really recommend buying and building this kit, even when it is dating from 1996.

Some supplements have been made in form of break lines from copper wire, cockpit interior and canopy locking made from spare parts.

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The designation of “heavy fighter” is well deserved: have a look at the building –process, I have glued tons of weight into every available space forward of the balance point!

If you are interested in the building process and in the models parts, please have a look on the workbench on “Scalemates”: https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=10148&p=albums&album=33568

As ever, remarks will be appreciated: ro.sachsenhofer@gmx.at

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2017 by Roland Sachsenhofer
Page Created 13 July, 2017
Last Updated 13 July, 2017

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