Motorhead Heinkel kit

[Nick]

Airfix are taking a leaf out of Revells book and linking up with a heavy metal band - Motorhead!

Airfix are re-releasing their HE-111 kit with special decals for the bird from Motorhead's 'Bomber' album cover of 1979. The original markings are also included.

https://www.airfix.com/uk-en/heinkel-he111-h-6-motorhead-bomber-special.html

[Dizzyfugu]

I hope there also comes an accessory pack with a dozen additional turrets...

[Weaver]

Well there's one for an accessory company (Freightdog!!!!!)

Looks like you'd need:

A ventral ball turret with two gun to go under the nose

A conversion for the dorsal position to have two guns facing forwards

A conversion to have two guns in the ventral gondola.

Some 'character' crew figures would be nice...

EDIT: also, the Airfix kit only includes one large bomb, and I'm not sure that it's the same model as the two shown on the album cover, so that might need addressing as well.

[zenrat]

Pre-ordered.

I've been planning to build this.  It's like Airfix were reading my mind.  In which case expect a new 1/72 rotodyne out soon...

[Snowtrooper]

Airfix missed a compelling argument there: Lemmy wasn't just "a collector of WWII memorabilia", he was also a fellow hobbyist (and probably had built a 111 himself too).

[Weaver]

Airfix missed a compelling argument there: Lemmy wasn't just "a collector of WWII memorabilia", he was also a fellow hobbyist (and probably had built a 111 himself too).

Top right....



Pic from this article: https://imotorhead.com/everything-else/heres-a-story/chamberlayne-road-era/

Pic and article originally posted by joncarrfarrelly on this thread: https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=43692.msg767508#msg767508

[Weaver]

Just went to place a pre-order, and they're already out of stock....

[zenrat]

Sorry you missed out H but i'm glad I ordered one when I did.
I just hope they haven't skimped and are getting proper chrome decals printed.

As far as building an accurate representation of the artwork goes i'm sure there will not be room for a complete ball turret under the cockpit floor.  It'd also take a fair bit of fiddly work to sculpt 1/72 pilot figures into facsimiles of Lemmy, Phil and Eddie.

[Weaver]

I've got one on back-order at Hannants now, though I don't know if that will actually work.

There certainly isn't room for a complete ball turret, but then the turret in the artwork isn't one: it's just big enough to show Phil Taylor's face, with no consideration of where the gun breaches are (they'd be in his chest...).  The impression is that he's lying inside the fuselage with just his head in the turret.

With respect to figures, all you can really see are their heads, so you could just transplant some long-hair/moustached heads onto the standard crew figures. The railway world can maybe supply some suitable hippy/rocker/band types.

[zenrat]

Easy way out is to have it parked with figures standing next to it.

The under nose turret sort of looks a bit like a ball turret but smaller.  I would have a rummage through my collection of spare turrets to find one of approximately the right shape.  Something Italian maybe.

[Weaver]

I was about to say it was more like a dorsal turret than a ball turret, but then I noticed that the guns are in plain holes, not slots, as if the whole thing elevates.

The guns are wildly inconsistent too: the nose gun looks like a half-scale, army-style M2HB, the 'ball' turret gun barrels look like full-size .30 cal Brownings but with no breaches, and the dorsal and ventral gondola guns look like the 20mm Hispanos on a Shackleton.

[zenrat]

Artistic license.

I behooves us to render his design more possible.  I am thinking maybe a gondola could be constructed putting Phil in a prone position with forward firing guns.
You'd lose the bomb bay but could simply hang a pair of 1/48 bombs under the wings instead.
I'm hoping someone makes an aftermarket decal sheet for this as i'd also love to build a Motorhead He 177.

[Weaver]

OR you could say hang realism and just try to make it look like the album cover - your choice.

The kit has underwing hardpoints for 1000kg bombs which are plenty big, but alas it only includes one. I was talking about this to a guy at work, and he suggested buying two kits to get the two bombs (he's not a modeller, so he didn't know about the aftermarket). Thinking about this some more, it also occurred to me that if you got two kits and built one up as the Motorhead bomber with two bombs, then you'd have a perfectly buildable 'normal' He 111 (the Motorhead kit includes the standard decal sheet as well) and a spare set of Motorhead decals to put on something more adventurous/surprising/evil...

[Weaver]

Just noticed something else:

In the cover art, the pilot is sitting much further forward than in a real He 111 and the Motorhead logo covers the area where his side windows would be.

[The Wooksta!]

Erm, I'd be careful of the use of the word "hobbyist" as it has certain... negative connotations.