Hasegawa 1/32 Fw 190D-9 Lt. Heinz "Heino" Sachsenberg
By David Mooney
Hello fello modellers, I have tried to create the Fw 190D-9 flown by Lt. Heinz "Heino" Sachsenberg from JV44. As squadron commander, his particular aircraft was known as "Red 1". The inscription on his Fw 190D-9 was "Verkaaft's mei Gwand I foahr in Himmel!" meaning "Sell my clothes I'm going to heaven". The aircraft in the protection squadron were painted red on their underbelly with prominent white stripes to help in their identification by ground crews. The legend of the Papagei Staffel (parrot squadron) was born (the name was given after the war and is truly misleading as it was not used by the squadron itself). The decision to paint the aircraft in this manner was made by the pilots themselves, perhaps as result of the failed Operation Bodenplatte, where a number of German aircraft were lost to friendly fire. I used the Hasegawa kit that i had in my stash, but ended up having to buy the truly awesome EagleCal set of decals as the Hasegawa ones were a real nightmare and broke.
© David Mooney 2014
This article was published on Saturday, February 01 2014; Last modified on Friday, June 02 2017