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Fiat BR.20a Istres-Damascus-Paris racer conversion


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Many international sports events were held during the 30s where countries attempted to demonstrate their aeronautical prowess and gain prestige. The Schneider Cup was one of them, the McRobertson London to Melbourne Air Race was another, and also notorious was the Istres-Damascus-Paris Air race.

Italy had the upper hand since it entered a number of machines with state sponsorship, a group of Savoia Marchetti S.M.79s, and two Fiat BR.20As. They were all civil versions that differed from their military counterparts to some extent. The airframes were completely demilitarized of course and optimized for speed and long range capabilities.

Their visual appeal is needless to say orders of magnitude higher than the one of their boring, drab and gloomy counterparts, and of a higher order was their purpose too.

Through the years I have modeled a few of those machines (D.H.88s, D.H.89 and SM79s come to mind), and who knows, may be one day, when their numbers increase, they could be displayed in a nice starting line array (I am ogling, as I write this, the box of the Farman 223-1 F-APUZ kit released by Azur that flew also in the Istres-Damascus race).

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The build implied some surgery and some scratch-building, but was pleasant, entertaining and rewarding, and as you know the starting point was an inexpensive very old Italeri kit that was thus redeemed from a dusty shelf demise or an obscure destiny. I purchased mine -during a Palm Springs desert trip- at the Rare-plane Detective (thanks Liz and Jeff!).

If you would like to check the whole building sequence you may go here:

The special decals were produced to their usual high standards by Arctic Decals.

A photo-etched set was used (although only partially) to enhance the interior and a few exterior details, with modifications.

My gratitude to Paolo Miana and Fabrizio D'Isanto who provided data that helped with this project. Any mistakes made in the representation are only mine.

It is like if I could almost hear those engines running, getting ready to fly to glory.

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Edited by Moa
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Simply gorgeous Moa and great photo's too. I'd love to see a photo (or photo's) of all your builds, this is quite an under featured area of aviation when it comes to modelling despite the glamour of the period

 

Cheers

Neil

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11 minutes ago, woody37 said:

Simply gorgeous Moa and great photo's too. I'd love to see a photo (or photo's) of all your builds, this is quite an under featured area of aviation when it comes to modelling despite the glamour of the period

 

Cheers

Neil

Thanks, Neil, you are very kind.

And yes, strange that machines with such attractive, glamorous, and many times historically important (not to mention with gorgeous schemes) are, indeed, sadly under-represented in the modeling field.

Perhaps our hobby is a reflection of the world, where conflict and related subjects/objects seems to overwhelm the good.

But things change.

I am an optimistic Modeling Buddhist 😉

 

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24 minutes ago, woody37 said:

I'd love to see a photo (or photo's) of all your builds,

Neil, you will have to use some imagination (or x-ray vision). They are all in boxes save about eight of them:

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But you can also look up my blog, where more than 300 models are posted, WIPs and RFIs in BM parlance.

The last builds from within the last year are posted here, but the previous nine years aren't.

I can't post the link because it's against the rules, but if you google any of my subject models posted here, eventually you will find it. You will see the Greek Modeling Muse Styrene as a header.

Let me know privately if you can't.

Cheers

(and I hope I won't be chastised for this)

 

 

 

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Again, a lovely model Moa.

 

Nice sentiments in the post, too. I'll check out your modelling blog – doubtless there'll be plenty more stunners there.

 

Regards,

David

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Stunning!

A most beautiful plane - with a little bit of a Lockheed Electra look to it.

I absolutely love it.

May I ask what scale it is - I couldn't see it mentioned in your post.

:goodjob:

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