Reading the Fw 200 C-3 Construction Record 02

This page is an interpretive reading based on Kazu Fukuda’s Fw 200 C-3 construction record.

Here, the focus is especially on the fuselage interior, cockpit, canopies, machine guns, gunsights, gondola, propellers, engines, and bombs.

Many of these are parts that become difficult to see after completion, or very small components. However, they are important elements that support the persuasiveness of the completed model.

The related original record pages are as follows:

• Original 02 — Fuselage interior, cockpit, canopies, machine guns, and gondola
• Original 04 — Spinners and propellers
• Original 05 — Engines, bombs, and accessory parts

One striking feature of the Fw 200 C-3 construction record is that Fukuda devoted much effort to parts that would become difficult to see after completion.

Inside the fuselage, parts resembling fuel tanks and oil tanks were installed. In the nose section, the instrument panel, control column, foot bar, consoles, seats, and related parts were made. In addition, machine guns, gunsights, power turret parts, and the internal equipment of the gondola were also constructed.

Fukuda himself noted that once the ceiling part was attached, the interior would become dark and the internal details would probably be difficult to see clearly.

Even so, those parts were made.

This is one of the important meanings of this record.

A solid model is often understood as an exterior-form-centered model made mainly from wood.

However, the Fw 200 C-3 record shows that not only the exterior form, but also the interior and equipment have important roles.

The side windows of the fuselage are cut open. Tank-like parts are placed inside. The cockpit is made. Canopies are attached. Machine guns and a bombsight are built into the underside gondola.

These are not merely detail work.

Once windows and canopies exist, what lies behind them affects the impression of the completed model. If the interior is empty, the aircraft may look less convincing, even if the exterior form itself is well shaped.

In the Fw 200 C-3 record, many operations involve transparent parts such as the cockpit canopy, side windows, and gondola canopy.

A canopy is part of the exterior form. At the same time, it is also a window through which the interior can be seen.

For that reason, work around the canopy requires attention to both the exterior and the interior.

Before attaching the cockpit canopy, seats, the instrument panel, the control column, and console parts were prepared. Inside the forward canopy of the gondola, the base of the MG FF 20 mm gun barrel and the LOTFE 7D bombsight were installed. Inside the rear canopy, an MG 15 machine gun was installed.

This shows that the canopy is not merely a transparent part.

In the records of April 15 and April 24, machine guns such as the MG FF 20 mm, MG 131 13 mm, and MG 15 7.9 mm, as well as gun mounts, gunsights, and the power turret, were made.

These are very small parts.

However, they show that the Fw 200 C-3 was not merely a large aircraft, but an armed patrol bomber.

In particular, by incorporating machine guns and a bombsight into the front and rear of the underside gondola, the lower fuselage becomes not just an external shape, but a structure with a mission.

Also, the double gunsight for the MG FF was not attached at this stage because it would interfere with later work. Instead, it was made as an insertable part.

This is a judgment that adjusts the order of attachment while anticipating later processes, rather than rushing toward the final appearance.

Original 04 records the construction of the spinners and propellers in detail.

What is especially important here is the work of establishing the center axis.

Fukuda marked centerlines on the spinner material block, drilled shaft holes from both ends with a pin vise, and carefully advanced the drilling so that the holes would meet correctly in the center.

This is not simply the act of carving a part. It is the process of confirming that the center line is true for a rotating part.

Furthermore, spinners with rotation shafts were made using brass wire, brass pipe, and nichrome wire.

The propeller blades were shaped not only in front-view outline, but also with pitch twist. This shows that the propeller was not regarded as a flat plate, but as a part that rotates and produces thrust.

Original 05 records the construction of the BMW BRAMO-FAFNIR 323 engines.

The crankcase, gearbox, cylinder blocks, ignition plug wiring, push rods, and other elements were constructed using artificial wood, brass wire, enamel wire, and pipe.

Fukuda described this as making the engines “look convincing,” but this is not merely omission or simplification.

Rather than reproducing every part of the actual engine completely, he judged what needed to be made within the visible range of the model in order for it to read as an engine.

This is an important judgment in solid model making.

The goal is not necessarily to make everything exactly the same as the real object. What matters is judging what should be made, within the limits of scale and material, so that it appears convincing.

In the July 22 record, four SC 500 bombs were made.

The bombs greatly change the impression of the underside of the aircraft and the area around the nacelles. Once they are attached, the Fw 200 C-3 appears more strongly as a patrol bomber rather than simply as a large aircraft.

At this point, Fukuda also stated that all accessory parts had been completed.

This is an important milestone.

At this stage, the main body, interior, nacelles, propellers, engines, bombs, and other major parts needed for completion had been prepared.

So far, the interior, canopies, machine guns, gunsights, propellers, engines, and bombs may appear to be separate pieces of small-scale work.

However, they are not independent from the overall image.

Each part eventually returns to the single image of the Fw 200 C-3 as a complete aircraft.

Therefore, detailed work is not merely additional work. It is a set of components necessary for establishing the completed image.

In the Fw 200 C-3 construction record, interiors that become difficult to see after completion and small parts are made carefully.

These are not made simply to display precision.

The interior supports the exterior form. The canopy connects the interior and the exterior. Machine guns and gunsights express the character of the aircraft. Propellers and engines create the density of a large aircraft. Bombs strengthen the completed image of the aircraft as a patrol bomber.

What this reading shows is that, in Fukuda’s construction, details are not separated from the whole.

Each small part returns to the completed image. Even the interior that becomes difficult to see supports the persuasiveness of the completed aircraft.

In this sense, the Fw 200 C-3 construction record shows that a solid model is not merely an exterior-form model, but a kind of making that tries to understand even the inside of the form.

The next reading considers the judgment not to proceed immediately to painting after the accessory parts were completed, but to wait for drying, and how the completed image was integrated through painting and final assembly.