1/72 Heller PZL 23 A/B Karas 

by Andrei Mitu

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  Romania National Day 2005 

 

This kit is the old Heller mould, which was reissued last year. No improvements were observed on the mould, but anyhow, this kit has a fair amount of details, and it is a good start for detailers. There is a photoetched fret from Eduard which is very well detailed and can be used by those who want more details.

The kit comes with two options for markings, one Polish and one Romanian. Unfortunately, the Romanian markings are not accurate, and must be replaced with something else.

As usual, construction started with the interior, with the pilot and gunner seats. The interior structure of the interior walls is well represented on the halves of the fuselage, and also there are some other details in interior such rudder stick, dash board, pilot seat. Next I went to canopy masking and painting.

Click on images below to see larger images

Closing the fuselage halves and attaching the wings come very easy, without any problems. The small spaces that appeared were filled with superglue and sanded. Some fit problems were observed at the attachment of the canopy and the transparent pieces from the underside gondolla.

Also, some attention must be given to the pieces of the engine cowlings. On one piece there is a gap that can be interpreted as a mistake in the mould. That gap must not be corrected and filled. It represents ejection chutes of the bullets which come from the machinegun which is on that side of the plane.

For painting, I used RLM 65 for the undersides and Rev 67 for upperside. This color seems to me the most appropriate for what was used at that time.

The result is a very nice kit, for a plane used quite extensive by Romanian Airforces.

Andrei

Photos and text © by Andrei Mitu