Lithuania placed an order for 14 Gloster Gladiators Mk. Is in 1937. The Gladiators actually arrived in Lithuania in late 1938. This gave the Lithuanians a powerful presence in the Baltic area as the Gladiator was considered an advanced machine at the time. However, the Lithuanian Air Force was not powerful enough as the Russians invaded in June, 1940 and captured most of the Lithuanian Air Force on the ground. The captured
Gladiators were pressed into service by the Russians. The status quo was not to remain for very long as most of the ex-Lithuanian Gladiators were destroyed by the Germans on the ground during the German advance into Russia. A few of the Gladiators survived to be reflown in German markings by their latest owner. As my interest is in the aircraft flown by Lithuania, I chose to model G-704, a Mk. I Gladiator in typical Lithuanian markings for the time prior to the Russian occupation.

The model used for this project is the Heller Gloster Gladiator, kit No. 153.  A rebox of this kit in the early 1990s by Encore actually had the Lithuanian markings as the kit decals. Overall, the kit is quite good and would result in a reasonably nice model out-of-the-box. I particularly liked the look of the Lithuanian Gladiator, and as it was going to be my first rigged biplane I wanted to do a decent job. The kit cockpit is very
plain and is somewhat out of scale. The cockpit was highly detailed using the Airwaves Gladiator detail set (AC72-109). I highly recommend this detail set for the Heller Gladiator kit. I used a combination of Airways and kit parts to achieve the final look. I could not resist a custom touch so a Lithuanian map of Vilnius was scaled down and printed. This was folded and placed in the map holder in the cockpit. You can see it in one of the photos. Both cockpit doors were cut out and replaced by etched brass parts
from the Airwaves set. This allowed a clear view into the cockpit, and gives the model a more realistic look. 
The engine was detailed with etched brass along with an etched brass external oil cooler on the top of the front of the fuselage. The kit exhaust pipes were drilled out. I particularly like the way the distinctive Mk. I prop turned out. This was accomplished by first spraying a light tan undercoat after cleaning up the kit piece. I then did a combination paint/dry brush/twitch at the correct time with Testors ModelMaster
Military Brown. I have found that it is not critical to use an exact shade of tan or brown. After drying, I coated the prop with Future. After a few more days of drying, I poked the prop tip through the appropriate size hole in a drafting template that I have and gave it a coat of Alclad II Aluminum. Voila!

The gun packs below the wings were made from the main body of the kit gun packs with the gun barrels made from thin metal tubing. This is a big improvement over the kit parts. The Heller kit comes with spoked wheels, an unusual and rare feature for the Gladiator. I am not sure why this was done other than to frustrate a modeler as he or she tries to make a covered wheel using Milliput and the kit part.  I cheated and the wheels were replaced with the correct non-spoked resin wheels from Delta Bits (DB 5017).
The model was finished in acrylics using Tamiya chrome silver along with PollyS German Olive Green for the exterior.  The Tamiya silver does look like silver dope in 1/72. Then came the part I was dreading, my first rigging project. It actually went a lot better than I had been expecting! 
Using a technique that was explained and demonstrated to me by Patrick Cook, a fellow ARC reader and local modeler, I first drilled holes in the upper and lower wings. I anchored a segment of invisible sewing thread at one point, then stretched the thread through the correct hole in the other wing. I sealed the thread with a drop of superglue. I did each "wire" as a single thread through the holes in the opposite wing. After this was completed, I carefully sanded the glue drop after cutting of the excess thread. After sanding, I painted the outside surfaces of the two wings. I could not believe the overall look! The power of being able to rig a model almost went to my head and I just managed to stop in time before I rigged another model on my workbench. I just could not figure out how I could explain a rigged 1/72 F-16A!