Special Hobby 1/72 Sack AS6/V-1

Germany has a history of coming up with some of the most interesting aircraft ever seen and some such as the Me163 and Horten Go229 actually made it off of the drawing boards and into service. One of the lesser-known but far more bizarre aircraft flown by Germany during the Second World War was the Sack AS6. This plane was built in 1940 by a Bavarian farmer and aircraft modeler. After some model flight testing, he built the full-sized copy out of wood, using the canopy and landing gear from a Bf109. The wing is a circle, earning it the nickname "Fliegende Bierdeckel", which means 'Flying Beer Tray'. From April 1944 the same squadron flying the Messerschmitt Me163, JG400 tested it and found that it was not as good as expected. Before improvements could be made, the Luftwaffe lost all interest in the project and the sole prototype of the AS6 was destroyed when the Luftwaffe retreated from Brandis.

The Special Hobby kit of the Sack AS6 is comprised of injection-molded plastic body parts, vacuformed canopy, and a resin interior. The resin parts are very crisply molded, and provide a very well detailed seat, instrument panel, and a one-piece cockpit tub. The one-piece tub will be a bit difficult to paint well, but there isn't much in there, so it should be pretty easy to detail well. A control stick and a radiator grill finish off the resin parts. The vacuformed canopy is clear, with only a little distortion. The injection parts are in the typical light gray found throughout nearly all Czech kits, and the molding varies from crisp to soft. The detail is all scribed and very fine, but some of the other parts, such as the landing gear, are mere sticks without much detail. Since this plane uses the landing gear from a Bf109, it wouldn't be too hard to find a replacement set if you so desired. The same goes for the wheels. If you want to display this kit with flat tires, any one of the 'bulged' Bf109 tire sets would work nicely with this.

Construction of the kit is straightforward, with the main wing being split into top and bottom pieces. The cockpit tub fits into the top wing and the instrument panel also forms part of the upper engine nacelle. The Argus engine is well represented, and the nacelle is made up of a left and right side and an engine front into which fits the nicely done resin radiator. The propeller is one piece, and looks like it will clean up nicely. If you really want to go to town on this kit, though, you could replace it with a white metal one. The vertical and horizontal tailpieces are one piece, with no locating tabs or pegs provided.

Propagteam printed the decals, and there isn't much choice here. With only one of these planes ever built, what did you expect? At least the decals are thin and very well printed, and are up to the usual Propagteam quality. The finish is simple, being RLM71 Dunkelgrün over RLM65 Hellblau.