Second-Annual 1/72 Scale Tribute

Gallery Article by Charles P. Kalina on Oct 28 2003

  Czech Republic National Day 

 

Ahoj Kamarádi! 

Last year I took the occasion of Czech Independence Day (28 October) to share my Czech-themed model projects completed over the previous year.  This year I figured I’d do it again.  I completed all of the following projects between January and October of 2003, and all depict equipment used by Czechoslovakia.  Models were finished mainly with Model Master and Testors acrylic paints, sprays and/or metalizers. 

Note that until the 1960s, Czechoslovakia gave each aircraft type a distinctive local designation – S (stihaci) for fighters, B (bitevni) for attack planes, etc.  I’ve listed them by their Czechoslovak nomenclature, and included the more familiar names and NATO reporting codenames in parentheses. 

Na Shledanou, 

-CPK

 

Click on images below to see larger images

TATRA-87 AUTOMOBILE: 
Prewar Czechoslovak automobile that later served as a staff car for both the Germans and the postwar Allied occupation forces. Model: Attack Hobby kit with homemade license plates. The Tatra-87 was my father’s favorite car when he was a boy in the old country; I bought him this kit as a Christmas gift and built it for him as a late birthday present. The kit puts the steering wheel on the left, but Czechoslovakia before German occupation drove on the left (like the British), so I moved it to the right (although only the earliest Tatra-87’s would have it placed there, so putting it on the left wasn’t necessarily inaccurate).

B.36 (Mosquito FB Mk.VI):  Czechoslovakia received 26 Mosquito FB Mk.VI fighter-bombers from the Royal Air Force after the Second World War.  These were given the local designation B.36 and flown by the 24th Air Regiment at Plzen-Bory.  The regiment’s first squadron carried the honorific title Atlantický (Atlantic) and carried the lineage of RAF No.311 (Czechoslovakian) Squadron, which flew Wellingtons and Liberators during the war.  The Mosquitoes were scrapped after the Communists took power in 1948.  Model:  USAirfix kit from my father’s kit stash (Airfix kits in the U.S. were reboxed as “USAirfix” from 1979-81) with decals by “Tally Ho!”, showing the Atlantický squadron commander’s aircraft circa 1947.

S.97 (Lavochkin La-7 “FIN”):  Czechoslovak pilots first flew the Lavochkin La-7 as part of the 1st Czechoslovak Combined Air Division, established by the Soviets in late 1944.  La-7s were retained in the postwar Czechoslovak Air Force until replaced by Soviet-made jet fighters.  “White 17” is an La-7 from summer 1945, when the aircraft still had Soviet camouflage and numbering and only the national insignia had been changed.  “SU-60” is a late-service La-7, repainted in Czechoslovakia’s standard green-over-blue.  Czechoslovakian markings later changed from alphanumeric squadron codes to four-digit tactical numbers.  Models:   White-17 is KP’s old La-7 kit, with pilot figure from scrap.  SU-60 is an old (literally “Made in USSR”) Novo bagged kit.  Both kits had decal problems:  the Novo decals disintegrated on contact with water, while the KP “17”s made it onto the model before discoloring and wrinkling.  Instead, White-17 uses Extratech Czech insignia decals and homemade tactical numbers;  SU-60 uses the decals from the KP kit. 

S.104 (MiG-17PF “FRESCO-D”):  This was the all-weather version of the MiG-17 FRESCO, equipped with radar and an afterburning engine (but not yet with missiles).  Model:  Older KP kit, with Neomega resin ejection seat and crew figure from scrap.  KP has issued new kits under the KP/Mastercraft label, including the MiG-17, but strangely, these new kits now omit the Czechoslovak markings that were included with the old version.  While one can always get after-market Czech decals, I made a point of getting the old versions of the La-7 and MiG-17 kits for precisely this reason (I tracked down the old La-7 in Germany and had relatives there ship it to me).

Click on images below to see larger images

 

S.105 (MiG-19PM “FAMER-E”):  The MiG-19 was the first Soviet (and Czechoslovak) supersonic fighter.  The all-weather MiG-19PM version had added radar and semi-active radar-guided RS-2 missiles (NATO reporting name AA-1 “ALKALAI”), but deleted two of the three cannon.  Model:  Bilek kit which unfortunately left a lot to be desired (and which also had to be repaired after I dropped it during construction).  The cockpit was so crude that for the first time in my life I felt obliged to buy a resin after-market part – viz. a Neomega ejection seat.  In the end it came out presentable.  Pilot figure from scrap.

Charles P. Kalina

Charles’ Complete 1/72 Czech Forces, 2002-2003

      

Photos and text © by Charles P. Kalina