1:48 PZL P.11c

Aircraft with names behind the cockpit

Of all the sheets devoted to the Polish fighter aircraft this one is the most personal. Besides numbers and unit insignia it carries the names of the men who flew these machines in September 1939 and whose careers carried on in the Royal Air Force. Several of them later became aces with a double-digit tally of victories, but the subject here is their very beginning, that is an obsolete machine with fixed landing gear.

The subjects printed:

• the white 66 of Lieutenant Skalski, the 142nd Fighter Escadrille, September 1939
• the white 8 of Lieutenant Krol, the 112th Fighter Escadrille, 1939
• the aircraft with the number 8.110 and the white 4, the pilot Brzeski, the 152nd Fighter Escadrille, September 1939
• the machine of Lieutenant Glowczynski of the 162nd Fighter Escadrille, September 1939

It is interesting that four names mean four different escadrilles. The sheet therefore also shows how widely the future pilots of British squadrons were spread across the Polish units in September 1939. For a collector it is material that can be built as a series with a unifying theme.

Three of the four subjects fall into September 1939, that is into the few weeks during which the type went through its only real deployment. The fourth is somewhat older and carries its markings in a cleaner state, which gives a good starting point for comparing the degree of wear.

On the build: on machines with fixed landing gear the dirt collects mainly on the wheel covers and on the underside of the fuselage. Decals in those places are best applied before toning, so that they settle under the final layer.