CMR G36 DFS Weihe/VT-3 Vazka 1/72

Hans Jacobs designed the prototype Weihe in 1938, after his Reiher of 1937 and before the Olympia Meise of 1939. As Hans Jacobs had been taught sailplane design by Alexander Lippisch, designer of many gliders during the 1920s and the Fafnjr of 1930 and Fafnir 2 “Sao Paulo” of 1934, one can state that the Weihe was another of a long line of saliplanes which were influenced by the Fafnir. The clean, simple beauty of the Weihe would make it a worthy exhibit in an exhibition of Greek art.The machine started its great career in 1938 and set up its last World Record in 1959, over 20 years later. This is even more remarkable because very few countries were able to build this machine again because of its construction cost in the austere period after 1945.

When you open CMR Weihe box you may be surprised with the simplicity of this kit, but don’t worry, the kit is just adorable. Quality of the moldings is just great as we used to from CMR, casted in cream resin, with nice level of details crisp and smooth. This kit contains 10 parts and it is really easy to build. Cockpit is small and only parts that CMR provided for it are pilot’s stick and seat, I added some seatbelts made of tape and that’s it. All parts fit great so no filler was needed. Acetate canopy has great transparency and CMR provided two of these…just in case something went wrong. Nice addition to this kit is small “in Action” photo reference CMR printed on two A4 sized pages and scale plans of this glider. Although there is not assembling instructions inside the kit, assembling shouldn’t represent a problem even for the beginners.

Decal options include:

DFS Weihe – D-11-184 – Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps (NSFK), Wasserkuppe, Hessen Rohn, Germany
DFS Weihe – SP-029 – Zur Mountain, Poland 1948
DFS Weihe – OK-8011 – CNA (Czecholsovak National Aeroclub)
Se 104 Weihe – ‘5’, ‘7’ & ’16’, Sweden
VT-3 Vázka – OK-3059 – Stranik Mountain, Czechoslovakia
VT-3 Vázka – OK-8162 – Czechoslovakia
VT-3 Vázka – OK-8303 – Brno, Medlánky, Czechoslovakia
VT-3 Vázka – OK-8606 – Vrchlabi, Czechoslovakia

My choice was NSFK sample, so after assembling the kit I first primed it with mr Surfacer 1200 and then the difficult part came, to find a match for FAS1 color… My choice was the Testors-Model Master 2709 Light Ivory color, I find that color to be a close match. After a coat of Klear it was time to apply markings. CMR decals are very good, in perfect register and thin, so I didn’t use any decal solutions. After another coat of Klear I applied final semi-gloss coat of MM II varnish.

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Building this kit was truly relaxing, and I can recommend this model to all modelers. If you are looking for your first all resin kit to build this might be a choice for you. Gliders are very interesting subject and CMR has established as the company that offers a vide range of these kits.

Darko Mladenovic

Sample kit provided by Petr Buchar owner of CMR models