1:48 PZL P.11c

An all-metal gull with the white and red checkerboard

All-metal construction and the characteristic cranked wing made this Polish fighter one of the most modern machines in the world at the beginning of the 1930s. By September 1939, though, it was hopelessly outclassed and its pilots had to make up for a lack of speed with agility, knowledge of the terrain and courage.

The sheet offers four aircraft. Two of them belong to the 161st Fighter Escadrille in their form of the spring of 1939, with one of them carried as the machine of Lieutenant Jan Dzwonek. The remaining two variants come from the 131st Escadrille and from the 113th Escadrille, the latter in its form of the end of 1938.

The finish and the placement of the insignia

The machines carried a uniform earth-green shade, for which a particular name is used in building instructions, and white and red checkerboards on the fuselage as well as on the wings. It is precisely their exact placement and size that are a frequent source of mistakes with this type, so it pays to compare the position of the insignia with period photographs before sticking them down.

In 1:48 it is a rewarding subject: a small model with a big story, on which even the fine corrugated skinning of the wing and the open cockpit stand out. The numerals on the fuselage are fairly large on this type, so they can be settled without trouble, while the fine lettering calls for a steady hand and good light.

A peculiarity of the type is the placing of the cockpit above the wing, which gave the pilot a view forward and upward that almost nobody else had at the time. On a model that means the cockpit stays in sight the whole time and draws attention to the interior, so it pays to give it more time than usual.