1/72 SIPA S.10/Arado Ar 396 - 4 decal v. for France, Luftwaffe

In 1943, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium launched a program to conserve aluminum alloys, non-ferrous metals, and high-quality steels in aircraft production, particularly for non-combat aircraft. As part of these conservation efforts, the Ar 96 trainer was to be replaced by a new aircraft made from readily available wood and standard steel. Arado transferred the development of the new Ar 396 model to the Société Industrielle pour l'Aeronautique in occupied France. There, German and French designers developed a simple aircraft with a wooden structure; only the central cabin section of the fuselage was designed as a truss made of steel tubes covered with thin steel sheet. Steel tubes were also used in the wing spars. The chosen powerplant was an air-cooled, inverted, in-line 12-cylinder Argus As 411 TA-1 engine with an output of 426 kW, paired with a two-bladed, automatically adjustable propeller. The aircraft manufacturer SIPA was to build three Ar 396 prototypes and 25 production aircraft as part of a validation series.