1:48 Messerschmitt Me 262 B-1a / B-1a U1 / Avia CS-92

Two-seat jets and their postwar sequel

The two-seat Me 262 was created first as a trainer. The instructor sat behind the pupil under an extended canopy and the aircraft was used to convert pilots to jet power. From this basis grew a night fighter conversion, which received a radar antenna array in the nose and in the last months of the war defended the night sky over Germany.

The story did not end with the war. In Czechoslovakia the partly built airframes were completed at Letnany and the two-seat version was designated Avia CS-92; it flew with aviation research as late as 1947 and belongs among the most interesting chapters in the postwar operation of this type.

The sheet offers seven marking choices, among them:

• An aircraft of a combat unit converted from bombers, found on the territory of postwar Czechoslovakia
• Two aircraft of a training unit from Lechfeld in 1944, one of them linked with the name of a well-known fighter leader
• Night fighters of a night fighter Geschwader from Schleswig, one preserved in British and one in American markings
• An airframe that ended up as an exhibit at an American naval station
• A postwar two-seat aircraft of the Czechoslovak research institute from September 1947

The printed sheet is intended for 1:48 scale and is designed for kits of the two-seat version. The decals are separated one at a time, dipped in lukewarm water and slid off the paper onto a gloss clear coat; a setting solution helps above all over riveting and panel lines.