Ahoj
Kamarádi!
This is my
fifth annual scale tribute to the armed forces of Czechoslovakia and the Czech
Republic. This year I completed only three models, due to a four-month
overseas deployment and various personal and professional commitments. So
much for my model-a-month New Year’s Resolution.
It's terrible when real life gets in the way of hobbies…
Share
and enjoy,
Na
Shledanou,
-CPK
C.2
(Arado 96B): Germany
built the Ar.96B trainer at the Avia and Letov factories in Prague during the
occupation. Avia continued
producing it as the Cvinca (trainer) C.2 until 1949, building 394
aircraft. The CVL (Ceskovlovenské
Vojenské Létectvo)
replaced it with the Yak-11 in 1955. The
Air Security Forces (Bezpečnostní Letectva) also flew it in
civilian “OK-” registry, as shown here.
Slow-moving prop-driven planes were often more effective than jets for
security missions, similar to those now performed by police helicopters.
(KP-Mastercraft kit, pilot figures from spares)
Click on
images below to see larger images
B.36
(Mosquito Mk.VI):
Czechoslovkia's postwar air force received twenty-five ex-Royal Air Force
Mosquitoes. They
were assigned to the 24th Atlanticky (Atlantic) Regiment,
named in honor of the Czechoslovak bomber unit (No.311 Squadron) which was part
of RAF Coastal Command during the Second World War.
Czechoslovakia’s Mosquitoes had the local designation B.36 (Bitevni,
“Battle”, the designation for ground-attack aircraft).
They were retired by 1950 and replaced by Soviet Ilyushin aircraft.
(Airfix kit with Tally-Ho decals.)
Areo
L-29 Delfin:
The L-29 was developed in the late 1950s and began series production in
1963 as the standard jet trainer for most Warsaw Pact countries.
Thirty-five hundred were built, most of them for export to Soviet-bloc
countries and third-world allies.
NATO gave it the reporting name “MAYA”.
This
distinctive tiger-stripe aircraft belonged to the 11th Fighter
Regiment at Zatec, which was an honorary NATO "Tiger" unit.
(KP kit with scratchbuilt cockpit tub, Neomega ejection seats and
Miniprint decals. I
felt that the Miniprint stripes were too crisp for a sprayed-on paint scheme, so
with a friend’s help I scanned, blurred and reprinted them.
However reference photos show that its paint job has been retouched over
time, so the crisper decals may be accurate for earlier years.)
Additional
References:
- Squadron, Mosquito in Action
Part 2
- Zdenek Titz and Richard
Ward, Czechoslovakian Air Force 1918-1970
(1971)
- Model and decal
brochures
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