1:72 PZL P-37 Loś

A Polish bomber that was ahead of its time

The twin-engine PZL.37 first flew in 1936 and was among the most modern machines of its class. It carried a greater load of bombs than much heavier designs of the day, had retractable landing gear with paired wheels for operating from grass airfields and, for its time, a clean aerodynamic shape. The A version had a single vertical tail, the later B version a twin one and more powerful engines. Its Polish name denotes the moose, that is the largest member of the deer family in the forests there.

Nine variants, three air forces

The sheet is exceptionally rich. It covers Polish machines from the bomber escadrilles of 1939 including aircraft with white numbers on the fuselage, further several aircraft of the Royal Romanian Air Force on the Eastern Front of 1941 and one curiosity: a captured machine in German markings, exhibited in 1940 at a propaganda exhibition in Leipzig. Nine subjects on a single sheet is a great many even by the standards of aviation sheets, so from a single set you get the basis for a whole display case.

Soft transitions and foreign insignia

Prewar Polish camouflages have a soft transition between the dark upper surface and the light lower one, sprayed freehand without a mask. That is precisely why you should lay the markings on an evened glossy layer; otherwise the edges of the film will show through on the soft transition. With the Romanian variants it is better to check the position of the national insignia against a drawing, because on the wing as well as the fuselage it was placed differently from the Polish checkerboard, and a mix-up is the most frequent mistake here.