Finishing Eduard fw190A5. Just noticed, I have a choice of tires. One set has the kind of tread you’d expect from a tire. The other are bald as, whatever. Never pass a safety inspection. This must represent something. What would Eduard be trying to represent? Why a bald tire? Eduard instructions are pretty good, but this kind of thing that doesnt appear on a “Weekender.” (Plane represents an East Front squadron, mid-43.)
Eric
I think the A5’s wheels were baldies. Not 100% sure though.
Lots of airplane tires are treadless, believe it or not. The application will depend upon the surface the airplane is operating from most often. On hard surfaces, that is, pavement, you want a tread to channel water and improve traction for braking. On sod, dirt, sand and the like, the treadless tire provides more flotation when the surface gets soggy. Take a look at the oversize “tundra” tires used on many Alaskan operations, no tread. Also, poke around the vintage airplanes (1920s and '30s) and you’ll most often see smooth tires.
Yeah, it represents the fact that Eduard made the tires for another variant… Tires with the tread pattern are correct for the A-7, A-8, A-9 and the Dora series. The kit-supplied smooth tire was intended to gradually replace the treaded tire and is only appropriate for late Dora…
What you have with smooth (not bald) tires is two extra parts if you’re building the A-5…
Groves or tread in aircraft tires are for channeling of water and cooling. High flotation tires don’t typically have much tread at all if any.
Tundra tires depending on supplier/mfr are nothing more that those big monster tires you see on pickups. They remove the tread leaving only a solid covering of rubber over the internal carcass of the tire. Those used highway and off road tires not suited for recap are often shaved down and used for non highway uses.
If you do a little research you’ll see that many of the aircraft flown in WWII didn’t have tread…in fact those that operated primarily off grass strips didn’t including German and British aircraft. Paved airstrips were the exception not the rule.
More specifically, I have two sets of each: eight tires altogether. Also have four rear cockpits and two front. Eduard does have a FW190A8 out too - I’d guess these and other extra parts are for them. (None of this stuff is for a Dora: suppose the tires could be, but certainly not the cockpits.) But that does imply to me that you can use a treaded tire or not - there are several options like that - all unexplained. Makes a lot of sense that in Russia you might well have been dealing with some pretty crude fields. Those luxurious paved fields built by the Germans (or the French) would have been few and far between in the Ost. (There were many grass fields in the West - but they were well prepared and put in places with good drainage etc. Rural Minnesota used to be filled with little fields. But they took pretty good care of them - or at least my brother the Forest Service pilot tells me.)
Still, giving the builder an option without giving a reason is a little like saying “You can turn right or left. It might matter, it might not. Your guess.” Thought that was a Dragon specialty.
Eric
Had a similar “unknown extra parts” issue with Eduard’s P-39… There was a four-bladed prop and spinner on the sprue, and I was curious about it, so I searched about all the aircraft forums I knew of (and some I had to join up to use) to look for info… Everyone seemed to think that it was for an upcoming release of a P-63 King Cobra, but I knew that wasn’t the case… Unlike the Fw 190, the P-63 was a totally different, larger airframe, not just a P-39 with a fuselage plug and different engine… A whole new aircraft…
BTW, in case you go for the P-39/P-400 from Eduard on a future build, here’s the dope on the two production blocks of 809 aircraft with four-bladed props, beginning in the P-39Q-Block 21 :
Eduard kits are generally out of my price range, with the exception of some of the “Weekend Edition” kits… I only have two, the P-400 “Airacutie”, which was a gift, and the Pfalz D III, that I bought with not a little pain off Ebay… Had to have it though, since it’s the center piece for a shadow-box diorama of Stachle’s crash-landing after he saved Von Richthofen’s life in The Blue Max… Using it in the center, with the 1/28th figure from the Revell Dr 1 in the front, and the 1/72 Dr 1,from the Monogram “Red Baron” show car, in the rear, rocking his wings in salute while the wounded Stachel mouths the words, “You son af a b*tch”, lol…
Anyway, it took diving into my reference books instead of the ‘net… That’s where I found the answer, right in m’ own “RefLib”, lol…
That’s similar to what I see when I fly over the Midland/Odessa, TX area… In between all the oil field roads, sometimes right on them, you can see all kinds of old emergency strips and bombing ranges in that area from WW2… The USAAF ran their bombardier school outta Midland