Blohm & Voss BV 141 Project

[ramses]

The pilot, navigator, and gunner glued in place in the gondola:



TI made some surface detail of pieces of paper and light balsa:



Landing gear struts equipped with the doors and a pitot tube installed in the wing:





Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

For this prototype, I chose this version, the GK + GH:



Simple monocolor scheme, entirely RLM63.
But for this prototype, I will use a simple cheap "medium gray" spray can from Action...
If I ever going to make an F4D version of this plane, then naturally I will use the RLM colors. And certainly a version with the tricolor splinter camouflage as well.

Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

Finishing the gondola:

I have used doculam for making the patterns of the windows for the gondola:





I will use Evergreen 0.005" thick clear styreen:



I used the Doculam templates to cut the 0.005" styrene window strips to size.
These window strips were glued onto the gondola one by one using canopy glue, eleven pieces in total:





Finally, the sharp point at the back; that took some fiddling, but the gondola is closed!



Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

Finishing the gondola:

For the cockpit outer frame, I first sprayed thin aluminum tape in the final gray color.
Then I cut thin strips and applied them one by one:





Worked from back to front, here only the nose remains:



Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

Initially i attached the landing gear legs to the wing the wrong way around.
The brackets were facing inwards, whereas they need to be facing outwards...
I cut the legs, swapped them, and glued them back in place using a small tube.
I further decorated the legs with soft balsa wood and some paper:





While everything was drying, I cut out the self made decals for the GK+GH:





Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

Finishing the BV-141:

Sprayed the grey mist (cheap rattle can) over the BV-141 and removed the masking tape.
Ready for the decals, although there aren't many on this plane, just the Balearic Cross and registration. Started with the underside of the wing; the registration still needs to go here:



The BV-141 is weathered with a black Vallejo wash and dry brushed Humbrol aluminium:





The BV-141 in comparison to the West Wings Puss Moth and the enlarged Aerographics Chipmunk. The BV-141 has a lot of wing area!



This prototype BV-141 GK+GH is ready for its maiden flight!

Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

Pre maiden photoshoot:









Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

Maiden flight and first test/trim flights:

Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

In the video of the maiden flight, it can be seen that the BV-141 was completely soaked from the wet field. That did the aircraft no good... the tissue became more fragile as a result and was damaged in several places.

After the last trim flight, it turned out that several wing stringers were bent (not broken). Upon returning home, I decided to repair the BV-141 and turn it into test version 2.

I am going to remove the landing gear and make a new, smaller, and more scale sized horizontal stabilizer.

The landing gear has been removed and I have started removing the tissue:



Same for the underside:



Covered with silver-colored VMC tissue (just sprayed wet here):





Left it to dry fixated in the wing jig:



Applied the first coat of dope and fixed it in the wing jig again:



Removed the horizontal stabilizer and made a new, more scaled version:



That makes a significant difference in terms of surface area:



The BV-141 is again ready for the overall coat of grey:



Re applying the decals:



Repaired and ready for the next trim flights:



I really like the smaller horizontal stabilizer!
The one on the plans is way to big.

Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

Lars Tolkstam had advised me making the horizontal stabilizer more to scale size.
I expected that the BV-141 might become a lot more unstable and harder to trim as a result. But the opposite turns out to be true; here is a video of the first test / trim flights of the BV-141 test version 2:

Thanks again for the tip Lars!

Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

Conversion to CO2 power:

Since this is a testmodel / prototype i wanted to try one more thing with this BV-141; installing a CO2 engine.

So i made a new cowl for the Modela CO2 engine:



First engine test run of the Modela CO2 engine on the Blohm und Voss BV-141:

Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

First test toss and trim flights of the Modela CO2-powered Blohm und Voss BV-141:

Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

A few weeks later i wanted to take a picture with my phone of the BV-141.
The phone slipt out of my hands.. right onto the BV-141 
Too much damage to repair (i saved the gondola though!)

This build thread is now up to date.

The BV-141 showed enough potential for me to build a new one.
The new BV-141 will be lighter and have a landing gear as this BV-141 will be build for indoor flying.

I will soon start with the build of this new BV-141

Cheers, Ramses

[ramses]

I will soon start with the build of this new BV-141

Prepared the building board for prototype no.2 of the Blohm & Voss BV 141:



I first want to build two other planes for the coming IIFI2026.
When i have finished those, i will continue with this Blohm & Voss BV 141 no.2

Cheers, Ramses

[g_kandylakis]

Hi Ramses,

looking forward to both build threads.

Thank you for taking the time to present the build process here as well...

George