The
real thing: after the war Fiat slowly resumed her production of their Fiat G. 55
fighter but when the D.B. 605 engines' stock ran out the Staff switched
their attention to available alternatives, read the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.
So a new and final version of this formidable fighter was draught and the Fiat
G.59, as she was renamed, quickly started to come off the Fiat Aviation
production plants. She resulted in a very first class training plane, she was
sold to Egypt, Syria and Argentina also. In Italy she had a very long and
successful career along the Aeronautica Militare Italiana (It. A.F.)
postwar ranks.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The
model: this was my very first conversion work since I built it in the
far 1989. I started from a Supermodel Fiat G.55 kit that I cut off the entire
nose from the cockpit bulkhead upward. Then I replaced this one with a
Revell P-51 nose, but I inserted between the two halves a great piece of
sprue. The two fairings on the exhaust were from plasticard and the long ventral
air intake was obtained by bending a piece of a missile (the Airfix Bloodhound)
in hot water. The propeller was from the same Revell P-51 and the
canopy was from a wrecked Airfix Typhoon.
Basically
there were two main series of the G.59 fighter, the -2A with the G.55 original
cockpit canopy (birdcage type) and the -4A with the revised bubble canopies. To
obtain a much changed version I choose this last, of course. The paint used was
from a now disappeared Italian firm, the Marabù 082 Matt Aluminium, typical of
the post-war Italian planes. The model bore the insignias of the A.M.I. 2nd Zone
Communication Flights, based at Rome-Urbe, 1950.
I
hope you can like this little work.
Paolo
De Sanctis
Click on
images below to see larger images
|