PZL
P.11c was a great plane, very advanced in the time it was designed.
Unfortunately it had no successor, so polish pilots had to fly it against Bf
109’s in September 1939, the beginning of WW2. Although German design was
superior in every aspect, some of them were destroyed by polish P.11c’s. The
quality of Polish pilots were proven later, when they had the possibility to use
equally advanced planes. During the Battle of Britain, 126 German planes were shot down by
Polish squadrons in the RAF.
I
started to build it immediately after it was released. The kit contains a small
etched fret, but I used also 2 photoetched sets from PART: S48-105 and
S48-107.
YThe
interior
was totally rebuilt with etched and self built parts.
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I also
opened the side panels to show the machine guns. The side walls were thinned and
the internal structure was made from pieces of styrene sheet. The major problem
with this kit are the openings in the front of fuselage. They are very soft, not deep
enough and very hard to correct. Part provides etched parts, with very fine
detail. But I don’t know, how to bend them to the shape of the fuselage without loosing
fine surface detail. I decided to shape them more or less correctly, glue to the
plastic fuselage, putty with super glue and sand to shape. Dzus and rivets were
sanded off, but fine openings were much better then soft depenings in plastic
parts. Of course some material from plastic part was cut off, so the openings are
really empty.
The
engine
was detailed a little bit, but not too much, because it is not very visible
after assembly.
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Engine
covers are cone shape, together with the propeller hub, there are also some vents in
them. The plastic part is too short, but fortunately Part provides a replacement, and
bending parts to cone shape is much easier then in case of the front part of
fuselage.
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A
radiator was built from photo etched parts, almost like real thing. It was
an exercise in patience, but the effort was worth it.
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The
spinner
was simplified, so I glued parts together, filled it and sanded to correct shape
using motor tool. Then again with motor tool depenings for blades were made and
it looks much better. Some other modifications were made, most of them are
visible on the pictures below. After assembly, panel lines were rescribed and
the underside of the fuselage was detailed with scratchbuilt and photoetched parts.
It’s
great kit, but needs lot of work. There are a lot of reference books here in Poland
and after my kit was ready, a resin engine was released (ToRo Models), so it
could be detailed much more…
Maciek
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