Focke-Wulf Fw 200C-4

The Focke-Wulf Fw 200 was designed solely as a commercial transport, an issue that would haunt its career as a military aircraft. The construction of three prototypes began in the fall of 1936 in parallel with the preparations for a production run of nine aircraft. The first prototype flew twelve months and eleven days from the date the contract had been signed by Lufthansa. Of the first three aircraft one was assigned as Hitler's personal aircraft. The next nine aircraft, essentially the A series went to a variety of civilian airlines, Lufthansa and other foreign users. In late 1938 work had begun on the B series which was to be the initial production version. Interest in this version had been shown by the Japanese and the Finnish airline Aero O/Y. Interest was also shown by the Japanese Navy for an example modified for the long range maritime reconnaissance role. As it turned out hostilities had begun in Europe before any B series could be delivered and permission to export was withheld. Although Lufthansa did operate the aircraft at no time were more than four included in their fleet strength. Most of the B series run was taken over and used by the Luftwaffe in support of operations in the invasion of Norway.

The C series came about as a result of the He 177 not being ready for service when hostilities broke out and the Luftwaffe not having any other aircraft with sufficient range for reconnaissance and anti-shipping roles. The Condor employed a relatively light structure hardly suited for the military role that was being envisioned for it, but the Focke-Wulf team, based on experience in modifying one to meet the Japanese requirements, drew up a proposal for the C version and it was promptly accepted by the RLM. Except for some minor local strengthening the C model was little changed from the B. A preproduction batch of 10 C-0's were produced which were actually B's that were on the assembly line when the war started. In fact the first four were too far along to be converted to the maritime reconnaissance role and were completed as transports and utilized during the Norway campaign. The balance were completed with defensive armament and bomb racks and during the spring of 1940 were delivered to KG 40 which began attacks on British shipping from Danish bases.

The C-1 version introduced a long ventral gondola offset to starboard, the nose of which contained as 20-mm cannon and the rear portion contained an MG 15 on a flexible mounting. The forward turret of the C-0 was replaced with a raised cupola with a single MG 15. Twenty-six C-1's had been produced by the end of 1940 but the attrition rate was high due to the transport heritage. There were numerous cases of the rear spar failing and the fuselage breaking immediately aft of the wing on landing. During the later half of 1940 rarely were more than six to eight Condors available for operations at one time.

The C-2 was an interim version with only minor changes pending the introduction of the C-3 version and had only minor changes, none of which addressed the major structural issues. By late summer of 1941 offensive operations had to be curtailed owing to rising combat attrition. Their task being largely confined to shadowing convoys.

By the summer of 1941 the improved C-3 version began to reach KG 40. It embodied major structural strengthening of both the rear spar and the fuselage, although the Condor would continue to suffer structural failures. There were three variants of the C-3, the U1, U2 and U3 with the differences between them being variations in armament and bomb sights. In February of 1942 production shifted from the C-3 to the C-4, which was built in larger numbers than any other variant. The primary differences from the C-3 being search radar and communications equipment. During 1942 a total of 84 C-3's and C-4's were produced.

Production continued through 1943 with a total of 76 aircraft being delivered. These included a number of C-8's built especially as carriers for the Hs 293A missile.  A number of C-3 U1's and U2's were adapted to carry the Hs 293A and these were re designated C-6's. The last eight aircraft were completed in January and February of 1944 but by that time its days as anti-shipping aircraft were numbered.

The Kit


The Trumpeter kit comes in a large top opening two part box made of corrugated cardboard with nice artwork of the subject aircraft going about its business. Inside the box there are six bags. Two of them each have a single large sprue with the wing and tail parts, two of them have two sprues each which contain the balance of the small parts, one bag contains the clear parts and the last bag has the decals and the film for the instrument panel. The fuselage halves are separate and are housed in a partition inside the box. The parts are molded in a gray plastic with nice recessed panel lines and rivet detail and raised detail where appropriate.

 The surface has a nice smooth finish and except for the fuselage, I found no sink marks or other surface blemishes on any of the airframe parts. The fuselage however suffers from a problem that seems to be common with other large Trumpeter models in that it has a seam running lengthwise down the side of the fuselage. While it's not as bad as the one on their RA-5C, it is noticeable enough to require some work. Fortunately it is mostly just a slight difference in height that can be sanded down without doing much damage to the surrounding detail. It appears as if their tooling is made up of two parts and where the two join it's not a perfect joint. There is also a sink mark near the wing root on one side. The photos immediately below the one showing the fuselage halves, illustrates the issue. The control surfaces are separate and thus pose able and there is some structural detail in the wing above the flaps that would show if you decided to lower them but there is no mention on lowering them in the instructions. The fabric covered areas look a bit over done to me but this seems to be fairly common. The parts are for the most part flash free and there is only minimal parting lines to clean up on the smaller parts. I found no ejector pin marks on the usual suspects such as inside landing gear doors or on the gear struts themselves. There are a couple on the fuselage interior that might be visible but I won't know till the interior is built up. There are more in the tops of the wheel wells which are boxed in but show no structural details.

The interior is quite well detailed with plenty of things to busy up the cockpit, the radio operators area and the fuselage floor extends to the rear of the aircraft and has all the long range fuel tanks and other details included. The crew seats do not include belts or harnesses. Much of this will disappear once the fuselage is closed. The inside walls of the fuselage however are void of detail. The rear fuselage door is separate and could be posed open but there would be no structural detail to see. The engine detail is rather lacking but it should be enough once enclosed in the cowlings. There is no internal bomb bay detail and the doors are molded shut. The complex landing gear is well represented and appears sturdy enough to support this large aircraft. The tires are not weighted. Two bombs are supplied for the outer wing racks but nothing but the sway braces are supplied for the under cowling racks. The wings are assembled from five sections, three lower and two upper that overlap and should provide the correct dihedral for the outer wing sections but the wing to fuselage joint looks a bit on the anemic side and no wing spars are supplied. By my count there are 281 parts molded in gray. See photos below. Note: only one of the two engine sprues is shown.



















The clear parts are thin and very clear and include the instrument panel which has a film to place behind it for dial detail. There are a total of 23 clear parts bringing the kit total to 304.




The decals include markings for two aircraft, both from KG 40. They are thin and look to be opaque and are in register. The supplied swastikas are the aggravating assemble yourself type. See photo below.



The instructions consist of an A4 sized booklet that is stapled together and contains 16 pages. The first page has instructions for the instructions, an icon guide and decal instructions, the next two pages are a sprue maps, pages four through sixteen are assembly diagrams. The painting and decal information is covered on an additional 11" x 16" sheet printed in color on one side on glossy paper and includes a paint chart calling out Gunze Sanyo colors and color names.

After Market Goodies

For after market I chose an Eduard color zoom set [FE 342] which will add some easy color to the most visible portion of the cockpit. Unfortunately it does not include belts and harnesses so those will need to come from the German bombers set.




Due to the rather weak looking wing to fuselage junction I decided to get the Nautilus wing brace [48-802]. This is laser cut from model aircraft grade plywood and consists of three pieces, a front and rear spar and a mounting base. The three parts are snapped out of the carrier and the spars are glued to the base. The part then fits into the lower center wing panel with the rear spar flush with the wheel wells. The upper wing halves are then added. There is no modifications required to any of the kit parts and the base fits below the kits floor assembly. The instructions are printed on one side of an 8 1/2" x 11" page. This can be purchased here. See photo below.



Conclusions
This is a first class kit and although Trumpeter has a reputation of having some fit issues it should produce a very nice end result, also a very large one. Due to the physical size and parts count I wouldn't recommend the kit to those just getting started in the hobby but those with a modest amount of experience shouldn't have any major problems.

Links to kit build or reviews

There's not a lot out there on this kit, another in box review can be found here and here and some photos of a completed model here.

References

"Warplanes of the Third Reich" by William Green

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