Subject: Re: Submission MPM 1/72 Bristol Blenheim Mk.I
From: "Submissions for ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "Javier Planells" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:06:18 -0700

Hi,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks again for sending it in.

Steve Bamford
Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com

Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Javier Planells 
  To: [email-masked] 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:45 PM
  Subject: Submission MPM 1/72 Bristol Blenheim Mk.I

  "MPM 1/72 Bristol (Ikarus) Blenheim Mk.I" 

  by Javier Planells
  --------------------

        Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo 01.jpg here  

  Yugoslavia's Vazduhoplovstvo Vojno (Air Arm) used the Bristol Blenheim in light bombing duties during the short war against Germany in the Spring of 1941, serving in the 1st and 8th Bombing Regiments and the 11th Independent Group. Despite the bitter conditions of the campaign and with some of them destroyed on the ground by the Luftwaffe, the Blenheims and their crews carried on a valiant array of duties such as bombing armour and infantry columns in almost a close support role and just a few, very brave and dangerous raids against targets as far as Hungary, Austria and the bulgarian border from where the germans launched their offensive.

  The first Blenheims to reach Yugoslavia were L160 and 161 (pattern machines numbers 8814 and 8815) in 1938. The first Ikarus built machine flew in March, 1939 followed by another 15 of the type. So Yugoslavia became the second country to license produce the Blenheim, after Finland's State Aircraft Factory. The british Royal Air Force transfered 20 Blenheims to the V.V. from its stocks in early 1940.

  At the time of surrender, a total of 24 Blenheims were in various degrees of completion at Ikarus plant located in the town of Zemun. Yugoslav partisans sabotaged the production lines, thus preventing the use of the airframes by the germans. The few examples that survived the Blitz were transfered after overhauling to the newly created Croatian Air Force, wich used them for anti-partisan duties. 

  MPM released their Blenheim series some years ago and while you don't see them very often, they're quite fun to work and a remarkable option to Airfix and Frog's respectfuly old offerings. The one presented here is one of the options in MPM's nice decal sheet, along a pre-war british and a 1942 finnish examples. Specially the Ksovsky Krist's (Cross of Kosovo, the yugoslavian A.F insignia) is a lovely rendition of the originial. The plastic is soft but very workable, the resin and photoetched parts are first rate. If you build it from the box or beef it up, you'll get an excellent rendition of this classic bomber one way or the other. 

  Click on images below to see larger images

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  The only additions were a seat for the gunner, a couple of levers in the cockpit and the scratch-built Darne 7.92mm machine gun in the Bristol B.I turret. This gun was sometimes used in the Blenheim but most commonly a Browning FN was used. If you buil it out of the box you can take advantage of the very fine Vickers K for the british and finnish samples, but I would recommend you to cut one of the Brownings in order to portray the Yugoslavian or a late finnish bombers.

  Paints were ModelMaster's RAF Dark Earth, RAF Stone and RLM 80 for the uppers and MM's RAF Sky for the undersides. The RLM color was used for it gave me a better impresion to the overall cammouflage than RAF Dark Green. Some weathering was given to the plane such as oil stains and paint flaking with black washes and some Humbrol 191. You have to remember these planes were well mantained and kept clean until the war broke out, so focus only on "operational areas" such as the upperside of the fuselage, bomb bay and landing gears, leading edges, etc, etc.

  Sorry for the average quality of the pictures but they were taken with my cellphone´s cam. I'll be "evolving" to a digital one anytime soon but they'll do it for now. 

          
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  And there you have it, a Yugoslavian Blenheim... If MPM would just release the Mk.I again, with decals for the other operators of this aircraft (Turkey, Romania, Croatia, etc.) we'd certainly appreciate it!

  Thanks go to Pablo "Zeta" Ziegler for getting the kit for me, he was very happy when he saw it finished and the great Srecko Bradic for maintaining his superb site http://www.letletlet-warplanes.com/ Trust me, if you like yugoslav planes, but not only that, take a time and pay a visit to it...

  Cheers from Caseros, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

  Javier

  Click on images below to see larger images

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  Photos and text © by Javier Planells