In the fall of 1937, Hannes Trautloft was named commanding officer and head of training at Werneuchen’s fighter school. In July, 1938, finally came the longed for attachment to a fighter squadron, and that to the elite Richthofen unit. Trautloft was named CO of 12. Staffel within the framework of Jagdgeschwader 132 in Werneuchen. The Gruppe was equipped with the Messerschmitt Bf 109 D-1, and the Gruppenkommandeur was Hptm. Johannes Janke. He became a friend of Trautloft’s, and more will be warranted about him later. Hannes Trautloft almost met his Czechoslovak opponents from Zurich

Hannes Trautloft gained a total of five aerial victories in Spain up to December, 1936. It was already becoming evident what his strong and weak points were. He was a capable leader with good organizational skills, commanded excellent understanding of the technical aspects of aircraft, and was a superb pilot. However, he suffered from a lack of something that was generally common to pilots that achieved a greater number of kills in the Second World War; good eyesight. In his memoirs from Spain, Trautloft wrote of his tendency to spot enemy aircraft later than his colleagues, his tendency t

Most people connect Hannes Trautloft with his association with Jagdgeschwader ‘Grünherz’ (‘Green Heart’), which is understandable, since this was the most important era of his military career. What is lesser known is that he had already a distinguished military past behind him by the time the Second World War began. In the first year of the war, he performed command duties with two units that had no connection to JG 54, while JG 54 (with 3 Gruppen) was formed by Hannes Trautloft. A closer look at this period of his military career is warranted, as is a more detailed look at the Me

In the previous article about our upcoming Bf 109E-1 in 1/48, I've introduced the first ever build Emil. During past weekend, I was able to start building a second Bf 109E-1 to bring you this next article, where we go more into details about specific parts of this fantastic kit. Fuselage - Tail Section The rudder is separately molded in the kit. Quite sharp trailing edge of the stabilizer covers the leading edge of the rudder, with well fixed distance between the parts. The final tail arrangement looks pretty realistic. Note the screw for settings of the horizontal stabilizer angle inside th

So gentlemen, first Eduard Emil is born! I have built the very first one Bf 109E-1 in 1/48th using the test shots couple of days ago, as you surely already know (check out the Bf 109E-1 Instruction Sheet Revisions article). Also I had many parts from the first test shot frame and they were not perfect, the build was big pleasure. The kit fits excellently which is something what I appreciate very much. All the shortcomings of the 32nd scale Emil are well fixed on the 48th scale kit, and I suppose no putty will be necessary on any section. There were many questions about the under nose radiat