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
TATRA-87 AUTOMOBILE: 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). 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