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Dewoitine D.520C1

n° 277, GC III/6 5ème escadrille l'armée de l'Air,
Rayack (Syria), June 1941,
flown by Sous-lieutenant Pierre Le Gloan


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Kit:

  • 1/72 Hasegawa Dewoitine D.520 "French Air Force"

Afermarket parts :

  • Eduard #72-254 photo-etched detail set (selected parts only)
  • Falcon vac formed canopy (from the set #26 “France WWII”)

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P1010113.JPG

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Corrections & additions made on the kit:

  • The nose air intakes were originally the wrong shape being too narrow at their forward end. This was corrected with plastic inserts and re-shaping. The louvers were added to the intakes as it can be seen on the photos.
  • The under-belly cooler was too narrow and also not curved enough in outline. It was re-shaped by making two cuts in its rear part, repositioning the rear ends of the cooler sides outward and filling the gaps with Mr.Surfacer.
  • The cooler interior (area covered by the cooler) was completely re-worked by cutting out the flat plastic fragment of the lower wing part and making an appropriate niche instead, as it was on the real thing. Therefore, the etched cooler grills by Eduard (designed to fit the kit parts) became just useless and the replacement parts were finally scratch built. The wing area where the cooler is attached was also modified according to the reference photos.
  • The main wheel wells (too shallow and represented totally wrong on the kit) were completely re-worked, in particular, the niches for the landing gear legs.
  • For the wheel well “ceilings” the Eduard parts were used, with some additions though.
  • The kit parts for the landing gear covers were thinned down and modified for correct appearance. This way they still look much better than the flat etched pieces.
  • The incorrect curved representation of the area under the rear view windows behind the cockpit (à la P-40) was removed and replaced by the flat panels at it was the case with the real thing.
  • Some panel lines were added and some were corrected according to the reference photos.
  • The rear view windows (unfortunately, not present with the Falcon set and too thick as kit parts) were therma-formed using the kit-parts as templates.
  • The main wheels were flattened using the surface of the electric cooker.
  • The etched parts for the gun sight were still too big and this one was eventually scratch built as well. I decided to add the ring gun sight as well, since it can be clearly seen on one of the photos showing this a/c.

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closeup.jpg

The kit decals were modified according to the reference photos.

P1010117.JPG P1010136-1.JPG P1010148-1.JPG
P1010154-1.JPG P1010159-1.JPG P1010166-1.JPG
P1010179-1.JPG P1010183.JPG P1010186.JPG
P1010191.JPG P1010193.JPG P1010196.JPG
P1010208.JPG P1010217-230.jpg P1010234-263.jpg P1010266-279.jpg P1010289-272.jpg

P1010179-2.JPG

P1010217-230-2.jpg

Edited by Aesthete
  • Like 18
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Really impressive, I really like the clean crisp paint job with just the right level of weathering given that D.520's were all brand new in 1940. Congratulations on a fine build.

Rich

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Brilliant! Great job.

I'm quite interested in the French and Italian aircraft of the era.

Always look amazing and yours is no exception.

For me this aircraft always looks like the marriage of a Spit and a P-40!!???

Well......just putting it out there :coolio:

Cheers

bruce

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Unfortunately, there seems to be not really a lot of French and Italian WWII aircraft fans, let alone 1/72 modellers...

This is why we'll probably never see even major types in this scale released by Airfix or Revell, not speaking of Tamiya (not repacks) or Eduard. The (relatively) recent releases of Supermodel upgrades by Italeri is another sad story...

At least we are pretty well served wit MPM/Azur keeping them coming in decent quality and there is still a chance that AZ Model might consider releasing a new CR-32 in this century...

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