KRK4m

IIRC almost 500 of these have been manufactured for the US Navy and another dozen or so for the USAAC. Great news! Cheers Michael

Very fine, but stencil #10 on the #72410 should read P-63A-10BE SER. NO. 42-70610 (not 42-60610, as this number belonged to Aeronca L-3C Grasshopper) BTW. Do you have the painting schemes already? Cheers Michael

Love such new entrants that don't start with PzKpfw VI Tiger, M1A1 Abrams and T-54. Maybe at last there's a chance for the M59 and YW-531 in Braille scale Cheers Michael

Let's hope that the 7-wheel variants (MT-LBu, 2S1 Gvozdika and many others) will follow soon ... Cheers Michael

Gentlemen, Contrary to the British, US and Austro-Hungarian WW1 aircraft manufacturing data, the numbers of French (and German, Russian, Italian, a.s.o.) aircraft manufactured in this period are unknown even in approximate form. Various sources give the total number of the French WW1 aircraft as some 60.000 (varying from 52.000 of the indigenously designed up to 68.000 including licences purchased and sold). Very few of them are confirmed - or maybe at least I haven't been able to find exact numbers of the vast majority of them. Would anybody be able to direct me to the appropriate sources or to help me with filling the list below with data known to you: Bleriot (mostly XI) - less than 400 built for military use Breguet (mostly XIV) - some 6200 Caudron (all J, G and R types) - some 5400 Deperdussin (mostly TT ) - about 100 Donnet (DD-2 to DD-10) - less than 1100 Dorand AR - some 1400 Hanriot (mostly HD.1) - less than 400 in France Letord (1 to 5) - less than 400 Levy-Besson (all types) - less than 400 Morane-Saulnier (all, mostly L, LA and P) - some 3000 in France Paul Schmitt (all, mostly 7) - less than 200 Salmson (all types, incl. Moineau) - less then 3400 in France Schreck FBA (all types, mostly H) - less than 1000 in France SPAD (all types, 1- and 2-seaters) - about 14.400 in France Tellier (all types, mostly T.3) - about 300 Voisin (1 - 10 pushers) - less then 3800 This already makes ~42.000 - is it possible that there were only 10.000 of all Farman and Nieuport types combined built? Even if we take the 52.000 number as too low, adding another 10.000 (4500 Sopwith 1 /1/2 Strutters as well as 5500 Moranes, SPADs, Caudrons, Schrecks, Hanriots and Voisins built in Italy, Russia, Germany and the UK) to these 42.000 makes just 52.000, which leaves 16.000 for all the Famans and Nieuports built worldwide - far too few ! There are some authors approximating the total (worldwide) production at 11.000 aircraft for all the Farman-types combined and 12.000 for all the Nieuport-types. Should we trust them? Could these numbers be so high? Any help will me much appreciated! Cheers Michael

OK, I also build 1/72 aircraft... But not only I still cannot understand why 1/32 vintage cars that have been sold so successfully for years (Airfix Bentley 4.5, Bugatti T35, MG K, Alfa 8C, Matchbox/Revell Aston Ulster, Merc SSKL, MG TC, Jag SS100, a.s.o.) disappeared so abruptly from the shelves some years ago. I think there's still place for them and Airfix should bring back to the market their old range as well as introduce some new items, like Riley MPH, Sunbeam 3L, Lagonda Rapide, BMW 328, Alfa 6C... to list just a few. Cheers Michael

Of course some curvature of the kit part can make comparison difficult, but here you can see the picture containing (from the top) the noses of: Il-10M, a little shorter original WW2 Il-10 and the Fly kit of above put into the same scale. My hopes of getting the definitive Il-10 in 1/72 diminished almost to nil Cheers Michael

it's worth remembering that actually Ro.1 was the most produced derivative of Fokker CV worldwide. There were more Ro.1s built than all other (Dutch, Swiss, Hungarian, a.s.o.) CVa/b/c/d/e combined ! Cheers Michael

Vazeny Pane Jane, Sorry for my obsession - any news about the 1/72 Cessna T-50/C-78 and Miles Master Mk.II ? S pozdravem Michael

Of course Il-10M has different wings, tailplanes, rear fuselage, armament, a.s.o. but the engine is still the AM-42 and only few cowling panels are modified leaving the outline unchanged. Thus the cowling section and windscreen height are the same. Nevertheless comparison of the Russian drawings (the crude sketch by Z. Szajewski isn't worth bothering with) and pictures with the photos of FLY kit confirms my suspections. If we take the fuselage length (without spinner) as 10.4m the total fuselage height is 1.50m at the windscreen lower edge, 1.83m at the mid-canopy and 1.27m at the wing trailing edge just behind the canopy. Using my best knowledge of descriptive geometry the respective data for the FLY kit looks like 1.47m, 1.88m and 1.24m, making the whole fuselage 0.4mm too low and the canopy 1.5mm too high. Not so much, but when you look every day at the real bird it hurts a little Moreover the 1.50m fuselage section height should continue forward up to the 4th exhaust stack, where the curvature starts to meet the spinner backplate. The FLY kit nose is too pointed, being some 2mm thinner at the mid-exhaust. And that's really bad... Of course this is only the picture interpretation. Let's hope that my eye is wrong and the kit follows the drawings almost spot-on. Cheers Michael

Frankly speaking I have never thought anybody (not only my Brother) could build such a marvel from this piece of s..t laying in my stash for last 30 (or so) years. Most of you perhaps even cannot imagine the "quality" of these HIT-KIT (sic!) mouldings... Chapeau bas ! Everything looks very realistic (yes, the propeller looked THIS way). Only the underside "gris-bleu clair" should be more "gris" and less "bleu" for my taste. But since the Roman Empire era de gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum Cheers Michael

The divider is integral with intake lip - part 5 (among the tailplanes and rudder ) if I see it correctly Cheers Michael

While waiting eagerly for the decent Il-10 in 72nd scale I still don't feel sure whether THIS is the definitive one I don't know what drawings is this kit based on, but the real thing (for last 40 days I can touch it every day) has much beefier nose and the windscreen doesn't look so high. Remember that the cowling must embrace the 2850 CID (yes - more than DB603 or Sabre) Mikulin AM-42 thus the nose cannot be so slim like in 1650 CID-powered Mustang or Spitfire... I would rather be wrong, however But old KzP kit also had cowling upper outline about a milimetre too low. Cheers Michael

Frankly speaking Finland should be treated as "very WHIF" user of Łoś. At least 4 other countries were much closer to reality. 90 aircraft with twin-row GR14N radials have been ordered in PZL to be delivered in 1940-41 to Rumania (30), Turkey (25), Yugoslavia (20) and Bulgaria (15). Finland, Denmark and Estonia were just "interested in purchase" with no formal order as for September 1939. Several months earlier (1938) the Belgian Renard company was negotiating licence production rights for Pegasus-powered Łoś (to be ordered in Belgium by Republican Spain), but SCW has ended before the contract was ready to be signed and thus Renard withdrew from the idea. Cheers Michael

Main user for the usage period - yes (in Poland this was just a year). But not for the quantity - of more than a hundred built and almost a hundred comissioned by the Air Force only some 30% survived the combined German/Russian onslaught. According to the Rumanian sources exactly 30 PZL-37s were flown intact to Rumania in September and eight of them were reduced to the "source of parts" on 14th December 1939. Remaining 22 are known to bear Rumanian serial nos. 201...222. The only Polish aircraft that Rumania can be hands-down called "main user of" are the gull-wing P.11/P.24 fighters. Rumanian AF has flown 191 P.11s and 30 P.24 (Poland had only 205 P.11s and no P.24s) of the 566 built. Cheers Michael