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At 860 kph [534 mph] The Arado 555 could have out run most fighters sent to intercept it.. This is the Revell Germany 1/72nd scale kitset of an aircraft that falls into the category now more commonly reffered too as Luft'46. 
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Partially assembled cockpit details.When the seat backs are placed in, they should be leaned slightly forward. Dry fitting the interior into the lower wing, then dry fitting the upper wing will allow the seats to be placed accurately, otherwise they fall in behind the upper bulkhead blocking the upper turret... |
  Shown placed in flush with the backing, they end up behind the bulkhead.Tilt them forward before they dry, to acheive the right position. Just in front of the bulkhead. |
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Interior colours are just a medium grey light brown for the seat padding and a field grey [greygreen] for instrument panels. For reasons of future usage, I intend to build this model with retracted undercarriage, which loses a lot of interior detailing in the bomb and wheel bays.. Thus I also need to have an aircrew.. |
 The Revell Arado 555 kit comes without aircrew. So I used some spares from an Italeri Heinkel 111z crew. The He 111z kit comes with two sets of crew [one for each fuselage] so I had plenty of spares, and they are also poseable figures which makes the Italeri crews my favourite. |
  The Arado 555 is a cramped aircraft, and the crew needed a lot of cutting filing and puttying to fit inside. The bomb aimers legs and aiming device needed a lot of extreme filing down to fit. |
 Leg room is tight, I ended up cutting up the legs and reshaping them, for a proper fit.There is also little arm or headroom, as the curvature of the glazing comes inwards as well as downwards towards the front. |
| I thought I might need some interior walls, so I cut some cardboard to fit. |
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 Then the last of the crew members was assembled painted and glued in. The seat is a bucket seat, so I cut a bit of card and set it in as the parachute, now the figure sat properly in the seat.Then the entire interior assembly can be glued into the lower wing.From this point on it's straight forward assembly. |
| The undercarriage down version requires weights in the forward part of the wing. Although this is retracted undercaggiage, I put in some weight for stability on a stand. |
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| The model starts to take shape, the engine pod fitted together well, only a minimal amount of puttying required around the joins... The tail planes fit by slotting into the assembeled wings. This allowed me to dry fit the model to see how it was going to look.. The wings went together well, requiring no more than the the usual putty and sanding to conceal the join.. |
 The join in the housing of the rear remote gun was the most noticable.. This was easily fixed with the putty.. But it requires getting in behind the gun after assembly and trowelling a nice finish..There's not much room in there for sanding afterwards... |
 Before attaching the engines, it is time to paint. I am using a Hellgrau [formerly Humbrol 175 which has been discontinued. Humbrol 87 steel blue is close enough.] with Grauviolet [Humbrol 27] pattern and an aircraft blue [humbrol 65] for the underside and tail planes. |
 There were a few possible camouflage schemes, There were blobs and wiggly lines, wiggly patterns or the standard splinter pattern, which was still being applied in 1945. This is the standard splinter scheme that I sketched out as a guide.  Nearly finished, the last few little bits are yet to be attached... |
 Before applying the glazing, an overhead instrument panel goes in. |
 The kit comes with plenty of small decals. And markings for two squadrons, one being the special ops KG200. They go along the vertical tailplanes. Because I would be using the model for video, I made it a rather generic aircraft by leaving squadron codes and emblems off. |
 A final conclusion. A good kit, it fits well enough. The faults that I had read of in earlier reviews have obviously been rectified by Revell Germany. * Note, Revell and Revell Germany are not the same thing, you wont find this kit listed in the regular Revell catalogue, although Revell also put out a range of luft 46 kits. * Note. Recently Revell-Monogram and Revell Germany have discontinued most if not all of their luft'46 kits. To check their current ranges visit the Revell Germany Website. and the Revell-Monogram website |
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Revell 1/72nd Arado ar E-555 model construction review
Composite images of the Arado 555 ( gallery )
Comparative chart of airspeed with the Arado 555
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If you are able to view Anaglyphs, there are more images of the Arado 555 in the Anaglyph Zone
ARADO E555 LINKS.
More information about the actual Arado e555 project aircrafts can be found at Dan Johnson's Luft 46
A flying model of an Arado e555-3 with construction details and video of the 555 in flight.