Are there any 1/72 decals for wartime RWD-8s?

[Procopius]

So apparently IBG's military boxing of the RWD-8, despite having some cracking box art of a Polish Air Force RWD-8 banking...doesn't actually have decals for anything but a civilian aircraft! Are there any aftermarket decals out there that would let me build a model of one during the 1939 Defensive War? 

[TonyTiger66]

Hello PC. A while ago I bought this kit from BNA Modelworld here down under. I was puzzled as the opposite happened to me, I bought the civilian version and it came with military markings.

 

It's somewhere on the 'What have you bought recently' thread.

 

I contacted BNA and they informed me that upon checking their stock, IBG had made a blunder and all their kits (BNA) had civil transfers in the military boxing, military transfers in the civil boxing.

 

I posted the military ones back and they did a swap for me.

 

It could be worth contacting the supplier of the kit to do this swap, or IBG if it was a private sale.

 

If the IBG military ones aren't quite what you're after, 'MIsterCraft' sell reboxes of the older Polish kit (by PZW Siedlce) of the RWD-8.

 

They can be bought so ludicrously cheap (as little as $3.00 from some places), it could be worth buying one just for the transfers. They have Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Soviet and even a (somewhat 'whiffy') Spanish Republican marking options (various boxings).

 

Here's the Hungarian one:

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/178859-mistercraft-b-45-rwd-8a

 

Hope this helps.

 

TonyT

 

PS: Attack Squadron (also Karaya) do a much improved main wing (and many other bits) for the dodgy one in the IBG kit; worth getting  .

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/959213-attack-squadron-72077-rwd-8-correction-set

 

TT

Edited February 26, 2017 by TonyTiger66
Spelling

[Procopius]

Thanks, Tony! Upon further examination, it appears to be that both IBG boxings at present have only decals for civil RDW-8s. I had the Attack Squadron correction sets and the IBG kit in my Hannants cart, but at this point, it seems like I'm looking at $40+ USD (including shipping and sourcing other decals) to build a kit of an aircraft the size of a Tiger Moth, and I think I'll just have to think on it a little longer

[stevehnz]

Edward, I have this kit to do exactly what you want I believe. As regards the IBG kit & corrections, it is the impression I have from some reading on the subject that a bit of elbow work can give a satisfactory result from the Misterkit kit.

Steve.

[KRK4m]

7 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

They have Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Soviet and even a (somewhat 'whiffy') Spanish Republican marking options (various boxings).

 

Hope this helps.

 

TonyT

 

Actually these Spanish markings - although not 100% documented - aren't 'whiffy' .

In 1935 one RWD-8 has been sold to Spain and another one to (close indeed) Morocco.

Other RWD aircraft that fought in the SCW were the RWD-9 and RWD-13.

Cheers

Michael

[JWM]

Hi

Five profiles of military trainer RWD 8 are on Wing Palette

http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww4/t/1177/29/0

The white number from fuselage should be repeated on bottoms of wings with some letter (?). Individual A/c number is also  sometimes a problem. 

Here are examples of decals from older mould by Mistercraft now

http://www.mojehobby.pl/products/RWD-8-Spanish-Civil-War-1936.html

http://ksmodel.pl/sklep/szczegoly/mas020453-rwd-8-magyar-recon-1-72-3662/

Tony Tiger has a good idea of buying such old mould model  just for decals and have some parts for scratch work on something else in future...

Here is a photo of some destroyed machines - likely September 1939

http://www.modelwork.pl/viewtopic.php?p=484129

Here is one very interesting with inscription "Lwów"

http://www.mysliwcy.pl/forum/watki.php?id=490&ustaw=nw&s=410

Here also

http://www.pwm.org.pl/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=78538&start=120

If you write "RWD-8" in Google and look through graphiscs (as I did) besides above you may find a lot of reports from construction of models with interesting corrections and tips. No need to read Polish - there are photos and Google translator can be helpfull also..

All civil RWD-s (or almost all) were impossed to army in end of Augist 1939, rather with no new painting applied - at least you may see a lot photos of machines destroyed in 1939 having still civil registration. They served mostly as liason machines.

Have a nice time with RWD

Cheers

Jerzy- Wojtek

 

[Procopius]

1 hour ago, JWM said:

If you write "RWD-8" in Google and look through graphiscs (as I did) besides above you may find a lot of reports from construction of models with interesting corrections and tips. No need to read Polish - there are photos and Google translator can be helpfull also..

All civil RWD-s (or almost all) were impossed to army in end of Augist 1939, rather with no new painting applied - at least you may see a lot photos of machines destroyed in 1939 having still civil registration. They served mostly as liason machines.

Have a nice time with RWD

 

Thanks Jerzy! Do Polish sources have any information on the RWD-8s at the Battle of Kock, or is no information known about the specific aircraft that participated?

[TonyTiger66]

14 hours ago, KRK4m said:

 

Actually these Spanish markings - although not 100% documented - aren't 'whiffy' .

In 1935 one RWD-8 has been sold to Spain and another one to (close indeed) Morocco.

Other RWD aircraft that fought in the SCW were the RWD-9 and RWD-13.

Cheers

Michael

 

Thanks Michael,

I should have elaborated, but I think Edward wants to make a Polish variant, so I didn't want to go off on a tangent. But it seems that's where I'm going briefly now !

 

Yes, it's pretty widely stated that one RWD 8 was in Spain. I have been searching for pictures of it for almost 20 years. It is the actual transfers/decals/markings that MisterKit have used that I should have said are conjectural (but as good as anything anyone could guess at) rather than 'what if'.

 

The only photographs I have found of an RWD 8 that may be in Spain at the time (it's very hard to tell from the two photos I have, if it is), show a completely unmarked aircraft, in what appears to be silver, in very bad condition (in a clearing). The one in Morocco also appears to be silver, but the only picture I can find is a close up of the cockpit area. My pictures are currently packed in boxes following removal.

 

If you or anyone know of any pictures of the RWD-8 in Spain in e.g. Nationalist markings, I would love to see them, it's one I have been wanting to model for years, but no luck in finding them myself so far  .

 

I have the usual pictures and profiles of RWD 9 and 13, and the rather nice RWD 13 kit by Broplan. I like the Broplan one more than the more expensive Resin kit. Anyway, I don't want to veer PC's thread off course (happy to edit/delete this PC).

 

To cover two things in one post I just wanted to agree with @stevehnz. The Mistercraft kit really isn't that bad, in many ways the IBG requires an equal amount of work. Just 'calming down' overdone wing details on the Mistercraft/ PZW Siedcle kit would improve it a lot, maybe new struts for the parasol (they look like pieces of 2 x 4 in the kit, but they're the right length.

 

I nearly finished it many years (11) ago, but like many of my models, it got destroyed in a home move across the planet. I didn't modify it, I was/am a kitbasher. This is about as far as I got and gives an idea what it looks like if just built OOB. I mixed the colour myself, it's wrong and horrible, I know :

 

 

 

 

It looks like, as Steve says, a bit of elbow grease and this kit could be made into something a lot more presentable, for a lot less $$$$ than the IBG plus corrections and with more useful decals  ?

 

All the best

TonyT

[JWM]

Hi,

At moment I have found article (in Polish) about airplans used in last days of 1939 campaign  by "Grupa Polesie" of General Kleeberg. http://albumpolski.pl/artykul/lotnicy-gen-kleeberga .

It is said there that near Adampol soldiers found one PWS 26 and three RWD-8. Polish army use them in  to attack both Soviet and German troops. PWS-26 had one MG but RWD none. It is said also that they used hand granates instead of bombs. 

I do not know numbers of particular machines but I can look through one book where such infos can be.

Perhaps other collegues from Poland know it better than me?

Best regards

Jerzy-Wojtek

 

Edited February 26, 2017 by JWM

[JWM]

P.S

Here is register of Polish civil airplanes

http://rwd-dwl.net/rejestr/bea-bez.htm

37 minutes ago, Procopius said:

Thanks Jerzy! Do Polish sources have any information on the RWD-8s at the Battle of Kock, or is no information known about the specific aircraft that participated?

 

You may go through it an look at the last column ("uwagi") - I did not found, but not looked through everything

Cheers

J-W

[303sqn]

One RWD8-PWS was exported to Spain, according to the caption, this one.

 

 

Text says SP-ANP but that may be just an uncorrected typo.

 

36 machines, formed into liaison flights of three, were attached to combat units as statutory liaison aircraft. Their number was increased to 60 during mobilization. In addition several military and civilian club machines were impressed into service during September. Some were temporarily fitted with a light machine gun over the rear cockpit.

 

Perhaps the best remembered exploits of the RWD 8 are the sorties flown by Corp Ignacy Radzymiński who on the nights of 17^th to 23^rd September landed his RWD 8 on the steep riverside escarpments of the besieged Modlin fortress to deliver despatches and blood plasma and other medical supplies. He was awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross.

 

On the 26 th September, the night of the capitulation of Warsaw, seven RWD 8s towing two Komar sailplanes successfully took off from Mokotów airfield under fire from German troops dug in on the outskirts of the field.

 

The RWD was the Polish aircraft to attack the German invaders. A flight consisting of two RWD 8s and a PWS 26 was organized by Capt Edmund Piorunkiewicz on 24^th September and made several sorties dropping hand grenades on enemy troops. The last was flown on 4^th October by an RWD 8 piloted by Piorunkiewicz with Lieut Józef Wodnicki as bombardier.

Edited February 27, 2017 by 303sqn

[KRK4m]

20 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

 

Thanks Michael,

I should have elaborated, but I think Edward wants to make a Polish variant, so I didn't want to go off on a tangent. But it seems that's where I'm going briefly now !

The only photographs I have found of an RWD 8 that may be in Spain at the time (it's very hard to tell from the two photos I have, if it is), show a completely unmarked aircraft, in what appears to be silver, in very bad condition (in a clearing). The one in Morocco also appears to be silver, but the only picture I can find is a close up of the cockpit area....

@stevehnz

...I mixed the colour myself, it's wrong and horrible, I know :

All the best

TonyT

 

The picture put here by 303sqn shows SP-APN (from the Silesian Aero Club) in overall ivory cream dope. This plane went to Spain, but whether the fabric has been changed before or after the service introduction remains a mystery. According to the Polish Civil Aviation Register linked by JWM SP-ANP was the PZL-27 prototype, so it's a text typo - not a wrong photo As to the colour of Polish pre-1939 military aircraft there were two different shades of uppersurface "oliwkowy" (literally: olive). But this was just the name for the camouflage idea and NOT for the exact hue, what reminds me the discussion about the "only proper" US Olive Drab elsewhere. 

Two biggest Polish aircraft manufacturers (PZL in Warsaw and PWS in Biala Podlaska) started their volume production with French licences - namely SPAD 61 at PZL and Potez XV at PWS. And this is the reason why the PZL aircraft sport light blue-grey (Gris Bleu Clair) undersurfaces and dark olive drab (Vert Emaillite) uppersurfaces while the PWS-built planes are khaki brown (Kaki Brun) overall. Thus the colour of your RWD-8 (PWS-built after all) isn't as wrong as you'd supposed. It has to be lighter and much browner than - say it - PZL-37 or P.11c.

During my 15-years work at the Polish Aviation Museum I had many opportunities to see and compare dozens of PZL- and PWS-painted elements of various aircraft, not to mention the sole in the world preserved examples of PWS-26 and P.11c. And I must say that it's very difficult to call any of these colours "green". Frankly speaking all Polish military aircraft in 1939 were BROWN - either light earth (overall) or brownish OD (in conjunction with pale blue-grey undersurfaces).

Cheers

Michael

Edited February 27, 2017 by KRK4m
shortening the quoted text

[Procopius]

5 minutes ago, KRK4m said:

 

During my 15-years work at the Polish Aviation Museum I had many opportunities to see and compare dozens of PZL- and PWS-painted elements of various aircraft, not to mention the sole in the world preserved examples of PWS-26 and P.11c. And I must say that it's very difficult to call any of these colours "green". Frankly speaking all Polish military aircraft in 1939 were BROWN - either light earth (overall) or brownish OD (in conjunction with pale blue-grey undersurfaces).

 

This is fascinating, Michael. Do you know if the Hataka lacquers are good matches for the two uppersurface shades used by Polish military aircraft in 1939?

[KRK4m]

Actually I still don't use neither acrylic paints nor a spray gun - all my models since 1965 or 1966 (don't remember exactly) have been brush-painted using Humbrol/Airfix/Revell enamels. Nevertheless vox populi = vox Dei and the common opinion among the Polish modellers is that Hataka knows what they do. 

Surely it's good that at last somebody has included TWO shades of khaki and that both of them are more brown than green. Moreover the darker shade is (correctly) more greenish than lighter one - the only error is that according to Hataka the split between "dark" and "light" khaki users was based on the aircraft category (with dark shade limited for bombers only). In my opinion the split followed the manufacturers traditions, as all PZL aircraft had pale blue-grey undersides while in all PWS-built planes the khaki paint covered also the lower surfaces. And the museum-kept P.11 was much darker than their PWS. Of course I mean tiny blotches of original paint inside and not the areas hastily painted by the Germans in 1940 or during the Polish pre-1985 "overhauls".

Cheers

Michael

[JWM]

Hi,

I looked through the individual brief history of each RWD-8, which is set in a table in Andrzej Morgała book on Polish military airplanes of 1919-39 and found nothing. I do hope you know this book, very cool...

Cheers

J-W

[TonyTiger66]

This is a fascinating thread. Thank you Michael for superb information on the colours. French. That makes a lot of sense. One day I hope to make a Polish PWS-A (BH-33). I am thinking with this information, they would be Khaki-Brown overall?

 

Before Hataka were available here, I bought a lot of Agama colours from Jadar.

I bought a big batch because postage is expensive to Australia.

I had read somewhere that their two khakis and two underside blues were fairly accurate.

 

Is this the consensus of opinion now? In all the years I've had the paints, I've not actually opened the Khaki's yet. The underside blue looks quite nice on Spanish Civil War Republican I-16 undersides, it's just a personal colour choice I like .

 

The colour on my old RWD in the picture was mixed completely from very thinned Humbrol and Revell enamels, mixed by eye. How I think I mixed it by eye I have no idea as back then (2006) I had not seen any Polish Khaki. I don't know if any colour photos exist of Polish military RWD - 8? It would be nice to see them.

 

As an aside, I'm curious, does anyone know; is there any link (e.g. Designers) between the French Farman 340 and RWD-8? To my inexperienced eye they look very similar.

 

The RWD-8 is a beautiful aircraft, I really hope you build one PC, small but very perfectly formed  . 

 

Best regards

TonyT

[KRK4m]

Tony,

Not only RC - there is a full scale RWD-8 flying replica being built in the Polish Aviation Museum. They use original factory drawings and the original engine.

It will be actually the second full-size RWD copy flying in Poland, after the RWD-5 of the "Atlantic-conqueror" fame..

Only the recently built RWD-13 flying replica is 88% size however.

After all the RWD-8 was the most built Polish aircraft up to the advent of Russian-licensed MiG-17, An-2 and Mi-2 helicopter

Cheers

Michael

 

[Killingholme]

On ‎26‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 1:09 AM, Procopius said:

So apparently IBG's military boxing of the RWD-8, despite having some cracking box art of a Polish Air Force RWD-8 banking...doesn't actually have decals for anything but a civilian aircraft! Are there any aftermarket decals out there that would let me build a model of one during the 1939 Defensive War? 

 

Have you actually considered saving some money and buying the Mastercraft/ ex-Eastern bloc kit and dressing it up with the lovely etch by PART

 

http://www.part.pl/

 

 

New isn't always better!

[TonyTiger66]

On 04/03/2017 at 7:14 AM, KRK4m said:

Tony,

Not only RC - there is a full scale RWD-8 flying replica being built in the Polish Aviation Museum. They use original factory drawings and the original engine.

It will be actually the second full-size RWD copy flying in Poland, after the RWD-5 of the "Atlantic-conqueror" fame..

Only the recently built RWD-13 flying replica is 88% size however.

After all the RWD-8 was the most built Polish aircraft up to the advent of Russian-licensed MiG-17, An-2 and Mi-2 helicopter

Cheers

Michael

 

 

Thank you Michael .

It's great to hear that they are building a replica. A very important aircraft in Polish Aviation history, and a significant parasol aircraft in terms of world aviation history.

 

The RWD-5 is a lovely little aircraft. The old PZW kit (now Masterbox) builds into a nice little model. Again, there is a nice PART set for it. Buying both direct from Poland wouldn't break anyone's bank; great value.

 

Going back to Procopius' original question, I was browsing the Sagittarius website for Yak-23 decals. I didn't find what I want (SP-GLK, but not like in the Modelmaker set), nevertheless  I found some good RWD-8 sets.

 

I know it isn't September 1939 (its May), but maybe option 3 on this decal/transfer sheet may be useful:

 

http://www.sagittarius3d.pl/?22,01472-rwd-8-pws

 

Or the set could be used to create something else?

 

This company have some great Polish themed sets in general.

 

Best regards

TonyT

[Procopius]

3 hours ago, TonyTiger66 said:

This company have some great Polish themed sets in general.

 

Indeed they do! Thanks for bringing them to my attention. 

 

Happily, a mysterious benefactor is furnishing me with some wartime RWD 8 decals -- all will hopefully be revealed soonish in an action-packed build thread.