greatgonzo

Cool with me. Is and was :).

Oh, You shouldn't be bothered at all. As said before - good job done. I just added a little bit information for curious ones :).

Good job showing a piece of Polish history. Just for information - these figures present late formation outlook. Not to be seen on the fields of Kircholm. This early XVIIth century Swedish war was top time for hussars. The unit reached, or saying better, continued to present the best combat quality. A long story about people, horses and armour. From that time it was only downhill for them, although they still had some moments of glory even late in XVIIth. The modernising battlefield made them obsolete and hundred years later hussars sadly finished being laughed at as 'funeral knights'. With military value lost and forgotten, and looking more glamorous then ever before, they assisted official celebrations - personage funerals being on top of the list. Still, XVIth and XVIIth century was the time of their glory and hoofs of noble horses usually drummed the victory march for winged knights on the battlegrounds of that age.

Walkaway lines would have been symmetrical on MkIX wings. But I see no reason for them to be repainted with other stencils gone. Please throw no tomatoes at me, if somebody proved me wrong. Although I feel not much fear here... .

To be more precise: the stencils were oversprayed and not repainted. This is confirmed by period picture. Yet it goes only for a couple of them, and the rest we can't see one way or another. Still, it means one can produce hypothesis that some of them were left and why, but nothing more. The only confirmed stencils left on the plane is the mentioned above piece of radio compartment door white writing. Cockpit door stencils survived too, of course .

I would say no stencils, but you can't be 100% sure with them little fellows, and the pics won't help you enough. What was left actually, was the part of the white writing on the radio compartment door. The part that was placed on the roundel, with the rest having been oversprayed. The edges of the roundels were oversprayed too, by the way. It is quite possible the s/n was repeated on the rudder tub. By hand. It surely was the case for ZX-1. Graham, that's how we know the coolers were there, as the pics are quite shy on the subject :). I'd love to learn the reason for flat tube covers. Never met the answer, unfortunately.

PFT Spitfires were DFS painted and oversprayed with Desert Scheme before they were delivered to the unit. A good freehand spray job with not much overspray. There are some wild theories what was sprayed instead of DS, but let's skip that. The spare cannon tubes were closed with flat covers (like the bottom of a peanut can), and there was fuel cooler air intake in the root of the starboard wing.

Hello Dana! I was hoping You may have addressed a question I presented few posts above. It is off top, but I am very thankful for the work You've made on Corsair. These two F4U books are excellent!

Three coats of three colours applied in P-47 cockpit? That's an eye opener. Now I must have another look at 49th FG D-4 found in New Guinea jungle. The cockpit is a colour mess there and with this information maybe it will be possible to come to some conclusions. Is there an information if that could have been the way to finish P-47 cockpits of those early D-s in both production plants?

Correct. This is a place where function/constant speed selector for CE prop would be mounted. It is the same size, shape and has the same connections. In my opinion we see a kind of mock-up mounted on HS driven plane, ready to be quick-changed, if CE screw would have been used. Or just a provisional element to take a picture for the instructions.

Adding a little: it is Schick Johnson metal seat for P-51. As the seats mounting on Mustangs changed during the production back and forth it can be called early or late depending on perspective. Again, there is a perspective for 'early' version.

Yes, Norma was taken from Brazilian Sq delivery, and as a Lend Lease aircraft was painted standard USAAF camouflage OD/NG. It is rather impossible to be sure what colour was used for field paint job. British DG is usually first choice in those occasions, but You can not be sure. Contrasts seem to differ from picture to picture, so there is some field for interpretation. If You gave me your e-mail I would send You a pic or two :).

Urbanowicz flew no 'M' at all. One of those ideas we can exclude. And funny thing is there is no reports of that belly landing. Only a note he damaged the undercarriage running on some stones on night landing Dec. 8th 1943. No accident report for that, so poor chance for proper belly landing. And Stinky is supposed to carry 188 by the way. He was a man and a half. Personally claims over 6 kills flying with 14th (officially credited with 2). Proud, educated, intelligent and observing. A word 'noble' comes to mind when you want to summon it up in one word. As a man he stood up from the typical picture of fighter pilot. His writing is excellent too. The books he wrote are much better then ordinary memoirs of the time. Very interesting, as he concentrates on so much more then fighting. Fire over China/Flying Tigers is just literature. Great read, but I am afraid no English editions. Not sure about that. Pity for Orchard. Man would have think the Polish connection could be a good idea to built the identity of the place.

Nothing's there. It is just a pic of this 188 which was a basis to prepare the paper kit. We know nothing of Urbanowicz's Ns, except they where N-5 in operational flights. Urbanowicz was a guest, he flew only a few missions (13). An himself was not very modeller-friendly in this matter. During his visit in Poland, when surrounded by historians and enthusiasts and asked about details of his aircraft, he finally spread his arms wide and said: 'Listen, it was decades ago. I didn't care. If you asked me what colour of the eyes had the lady bartending in Orchard, I might have had a chance, but with the colour of something painted on my plane - no goddamned way!

How about a link? I can surely read Polish ;).

We do not know what specific planes were flown by Witold Urbanowicz. Yet we can exclude some quite popular presentations in profiles and paintings. The most probable candidate seems to be the P-40K Deacon Sad Sack of Lyndon Lewis - 169 on the tail. 188 is tricky. The number is supposed to be the one for the bird Urbanowicz was supposed to belly land. Lot of supposition and not much confirmation in documents and it was a 'K' anyway. We know quite well what types were flown by Polish Ace, but, unfortunately, no serials. This P-40 has been a Holy Graal for Polish modellers for years.

You mixed descriptions on the pics and somehow painted Bubble D black knowing it was not black at all. And some details..., Ah I don't care! Big hug for presenting this very subject. And good modelling job done!

Well, there is. Nobody has done for Thunderbolt anything like excellent Charles Neely's job on P-51 canopies. Don't know if it is even possible to systemise it, but there are different P-47 canopies. Never cared much myself, as they are rare and, like I said, it is enough to take a glance at specific frame.

Ah. If the subject was fitting of the model kits parts - I have no idea at all. Except a simple rule, that 'a modeller will go trough!' ;). The canopy was the same. Looking at the pictures it is possible to see, that the blown part of the canopy shows shape differences. Unfortunately , the research for P-47 is no match for this done for Mustang. There are tones of materials left for p-51 and, sadly, lot off P-47 staff is gone far beyond Pecos River. N version canopy seems to be stable in shape. I believe I have only one book that even mentions this subject. IIRC there is not much specific there. I might take a look, but in the end all You have to do is check if Your D craft carries the same one. It should, because other types are seldom, but it is safer to do a check. And since we've been in canopy shop, maybe one finds it interesting: when they tried to fix bubble canopy concept for F4U, they converted one frame and used nothing else, but P-47 Bubble top canopy. Ha! Edit: Well, there are issues with Academy windscreen shape for P-47. At least for D model, but I don't think they changed anything here for the N. There could be some problem with fitting canopy to windscreen if they came from different producers. I wouldn't know, I used some vacuformed canopy for my Gabresky's built from Academy kit.

I am not sure I understand what You mean?

No external wires, no IFF on this bird. If she had no fuselage fuel tank the IFF (SCR 695 with mast under wing only) is probable. But the probability still would have been damn low. Edit: Oh, she's a 'D'. Forget the IFF.

I haven't noticed that before. You have two top engine flaps closed. It was true for F4Us for a while but never for Thunderbolt. Never.

Yes. Yet I don't believe there were any long range ground support missions taken. And I don't think I have seen a pic of N with tanks and rockets, or bomb. The HVAR mounted with bombs - sure, even three of them.

Let's stop here :).

That's right with the bars. The insignia was painted with doors closed. The inside of the duct was painted white and blue too, according to the star on the fuselage. But! If You are going to mount the tank You showed above under the wing of this girl - don't!! Far East never saw this kind of tanks. Use P-38-type tear drop shaped instead.