Skins by Aelius

[aelius]

Looking at the date of my last post, I realize that it's been almost four years since I last contributed to this forum--which is an intolerable delay.

The Ju 87 "Snake" Stuka always has been my favorite plane and one on which I've worked hardest to skin properly. Returning to it after such a long hiatus, I realize that several things could be improved; indeed, they should have been properly addressed in the first place.

One is that the propeller hub appears differently at rest than when the plane is in flight. I've corrected this by adding mottling to the stationary hub, which is absent when it is spinning. In extending the slatted dive brakes, the design of the Balkenkreuz on the underside of the wings does repeat itself on the slats themselves. And this, after a considerable amount of time trying to discover where they were located on the template, has been corrected as well.

Finally, the snake motif has been slightly modified so that it accords more with the photographs on which it is based and less on the illustration by Egbert Friedl that accompanied the definitive article on the "Schlangen" Stukas in Luftwaffe im Focus (No. 7). There now is a ridge above the eye and a slight correction to the pattern and position of the tail. The aircraft code also has been enlarged and the paint scheme weathered more.

I hope that those who have flown the original will enjoy this revision of the Ju 87 T6+DP--and be certain to extend the dive brakes!

Another shot, this time situated above the Libyan desert, as it might have appeared in the summer of 1941.

The revised template can be found here.