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Arado Ar 68E |
Development of the Arado Ar 68E began in the summer of 1933, just as the Heinkel He 51 was entering service.
From the outset, the design team wanted to avoid the older, lower-power BMW VI engine and considered the Rolls Royce Kestrel as well as the Curtiss Conqueror... but the RLM insisted on a German-only design, and so it was decided to continue airframe work until 1935, when the brand new Jumo 210 was expected to be ready. Delays in the engine program occurred, however, and the BMW was installed in the Ar 68F as a stop-gap measure until the Jumo production line was up and running.
After a series
of stops and starts, the Luftwaffe was finally convinced of the
superiority of the Arado over the He 51 by a convincing aerial display
put on by Ernst Udet (seems he did this a lot...), and the Jumo-powered
E model entered service in late 1936. The aircraft depicted here served
with 3./JG 135 at Bad Aibling in late 1937.
This is the Classic Airframes kit, almost completely straight from the
box with the following minor modifications:
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Aileron, elevator, and rudder forward outboard edges reprofiled to correct outline
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Lower wings and upper wing center section sanded flat as per the original aircraft
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Rigged with .010 Evergreen strip; antenna from invisible thread
Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:
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Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2005
by Lynn Ritger
Page Created 09 April, 2005
Last Updated
26 April, 2007
