PZL P-11c - Polish Defender ***FINISHED***

[PeterB]

Ok. Back in around 1963 Revell GB began to release a series of aircraft kits which filled in a lot of gaps in both my WWI and WWII collections, together with a couple from the period between the wars. They continued plugging away for the next 6 or so years and I guess I build most of them - the only ones I cannot recall buying were the PT-17 "Kaydet" and the P-39 Airacobra. I believe I still have all of their WWI releases, but most of the WWII ones have since been replaced by supposedly more accurate kits. but there is one kit I have lost which was never replaced, and so I have been looking on and off for some time for a replacement. I could no doubt buy a newer and perhaps more accurate one, but I liked the old Revell kit so I decided to buy another one for this GB and here it is – this looks to be the later 1966 Revell boxing not the 1965 Revell GB one I originally bought.

 

 

Cheap and simple kit which I probably built, painted and maybe even got the decs on in one day - certainly no more than two - this time I may take a bit longer.

 

PZL (Państwowe Zakłady Lotnicze - State Aviation Works) was founded in 1928 and their designer Zygmunt Pulawski designed a family of high gull winged single engined fighters starting with the P.1 which was powered by a Hispano Suiza inline engine and first flew in 1929, 2 being produced. It was however decided that a licence produced radial engine would be better so he modified it to become the P.6 with a locally built Bristol Jupiter. Only 1 was built and the production version was the modified P.7 with a more powerful Jupiter with a supercharger. This entered service as the P.7a in 1933 and 149 were produced together with 2 prototypes, up to 40 remaining in service at the start of the war. Pulawski preferred inline engines and his next designs were the P.8 and P.9 fighters with that type of engine but after he died in an air crash in 1931 the designs were never produced.

 

Instead a modified P.7a called the P.11 was developed, versions of which were tested with a Jupiter but the main production types had a Bristol Mercury, again built under licence, though many of the modified export versions had a Gnome Rhone radial engine becoming the P.24. Although slightly faster this was never bought by the Polish Air Force, who instead bought about 50 P.11a, followed by 150 of the slightly modified P.11c with a more powerful Mercury. Though a number of P.11a took part in the war, most of the Polish fighters were P.11c. The normal armament was two synchronised 7.92mm mg in the sides of the fuselage, but about a third of the P.11c carried an extra 7.92 mg in each wing which did slow them down slightly. They could also carry a few small bombs under the wings. With a maximum speed of 250mph and a light armament they were outclassed and obsolescent by the time the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, but were highly manoeuvrable, had a decent rate of climb and good short field performance which meant they could be dispersed to various small airfields making it harder for the Germans to attack them on the ground.

 

According to the Mushroom book on the PZL P.11c, it is claimed to have shot down 91 Luftwaffe aircraft including quite a few Do-17 but the box art and kit details are for the 111th Fighter Flight “Tadeusz Koskiuszko” which did not claim any of that type so the box art is perhaps incorrect. The unit was named after General Koskiuszko who served in the US War of Independence, hence the Stars and Stripes, and then returned home and in 1794 led a peasant's revolt which is commemorated by the peasant cap and scythes.

 

More as and when I start the build, which could be a while as I have a few models to finish off from other GB.

 

Pete

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by PeterB

[dnl42]

Nice! 

 

Will you stay with the kit decals or get some AM?

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Welcome aboard if you need decals ket us know there are aftermarket sets out there and I have a few if you need something. 

[Toryu]

Oh yes, at that time you returned from school for lunch with this new kit in your proud possession, and right after homework you built it in one go with the decals on at dinner time. Painting was no big deal because the kit was molded in green plastic anyway… 

So take a little more time Pete, and start after breakfast!

[PeterB]

6 hours ago, Toryu said:

 Painting was no big deal because the kit was molded in green plastic anyway… 

 

I did actually paint it in a green colour as I recall, but when I first built this kit around 55 years ago I suspect little was known about Polish AF colours outside of Poland itself – certainly I did not have access to any reference material over here in the UK and of course the internet was still a fair way in the future. Of course, since then things have changed but as with most modelling there is considerable uncertainty/debate about the actual shades used. The one thing generally agreed is that the entire fuselage, vertical tail, and upper surfaces of the wings and horizontal tail were a colour often referred to as “Polish Khaki” whilst the under surfaces of the tail and wings were either light blue of blue/grey. The kit instructions say Olive Green and Light Blue and are maybe not that far out. Most of the profiles I have seen show the “Khaki” to be a brown which in some cases seems almost “Chocolate”, and the sole surviving example can look either green or brown depending on the lighting, but of course it has been repainted several times apparently so may not be accurate. Robert Pęczkowski, one of the author's of the Mushroom Publications book on the PZL-11 has kindly given me permission to show you a few photos of the one preserved in Warsaw which shows the problem with the colour changing depending on lighting or maybe repainting!

Some articles I have read say the colour should be close to US Olive Drab, whilst some of the paint available is definitely brown, and there is much talk of a “light Khaki” and “dark Khaki” and that the 4 main aircraft manufacturers all used different paint suppliers – shades of the old White Ensign Colourcoats different IJN greens for Mitsubishi, Nakajima and Kawanishi and the 4 versions of the Italian Giallo Mimetico with Fiat and Macchi both having their own versions supposedly! Anyway, what colours am I going to use? I looked at the IPMS Stockholm colour charts and they still show a light and dark version of the Khaki and say that this plane would be in the light version, the nearest equivalent being Humbrol Hu 142 Field Drab. That is no longer produced but as it happens I have a hopefully viable tin and was going to use it when I came across this article on their site-

https://www.ipmsstockholm.se/home/a-question-of-polish-khaki/

As you will see the author has done a bit of research and I am inclined to believe his results even if it slightly contradicts the “Urban's Colour Chart” version as he says there was only one Khaki not two but it faded from a Khaki Drab green/brown to various shades of brown just like US OD, and in fact one of the weathered/faded shades he mentions is indeed the one close to Hu 142, so that just leaves the question of new paint or weathered – given how long they had been in service, weathered is definitely an option though it may have been repainted! I may do it in the browner colour and if I don't like it overpaint it with a thin coat of Tamiya's XF-51 Khaki Drab. The underside blue/grey is easier – rather than mixing 4 parts Hu 87 steel grey with 1 part Hu 34 white as suggested on the colour chart I think I will use some Gunze RLM76.

 

More as and when.

 

Pete

 

[stevej60]

Welcome Pete,I well remember building this one bought on a Saturday morning from the Newsagent's I delivered paper's for,I can say without fear of contradiction

my first Polish aircraft model!

[John]

Pure nostalgia 😀

I have a memory of the undercarriage being extremely fragile?

 

John 

[PeterB]

6 minutes ago, John said:

Pure nostalgia 😀

I have a memory of the undercarriage being extremely fragile?

 

John 

Actually it looks quite robust but will of course depend on just how well it locates to the fuselage!

 

Pete

[PeterB]

Having just finished my entries for another 3 GB, for the first time in at least 2 years I actually have no part completed kits on my workbench, so a good time to start this one. The cockpit interior is as you would expect basic - a pilot and seat in fact is all you get! Although it will be all but invisible I decided to add a bit of detail - footboard, stick, IP and a representation of the framing. The cockpit was in fact surrounded by a veritable cage, but I have just glued in a couple of horizontal side struts and ditto a pair of diagonals.

Like the pics of the outside I posted earlier, the interior colours change with lighting etc. The IP is black, as are the seat cushions on the preserved version, and the footboards seem to be a sort of greyish green, but the frame and side panels could be anything from white to aluminium via very light grey. I have gone for aluminium.

 Next up I will paint and fit the engine and mount and can close it up. This has a tiny fuselage - though maybe slightly longer than the Revell I-16 I built at about the same time and have since replaced with an ICM version. The longer this GB goes on, the more of the old 1960's Revell GB kits I realise I probably never built. I think now it may have been not just the PT-17 and P-39, but also their P-40 and F4F but as I said elsewhere, the fact that a school friend and I were buying and building them together may have "blurred" my memory a bit and I am not sure which of us built the Fw190 and Zero either, though I certainly built at least one of them as I remember thinking it looked smaller than the Airfix version. I think I am safe in saying I built all their WWI kits as there was not a lot of competition at the time,( Airfix did a Fokker Dr1, Albatros DVa and a 2F1 Camel whilst the Revell versions were a normal RFC Camel and an Albatros D.III and their Dr1 was rather better looking than the somewhat "chunky" Airfix version) but Airfix did release a few WWII ones that "overlapped" at about the same time, such as the P-39, Wildcat and Kittyhawk, and I bought those instead. Airfix also brought out their Zero before Revell I think, and likewise a Mustang and a Fw190 but it was a D version.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited July 11, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

The kit provides 3 parts for the engine/cowling assembly - the bank of cylinders, a sort of fairing to go over and in front of them, and the exhaust collector ring. Here are the first 2 of those.

 

The "fairing seems to be a work of fiction, or at least a gross simplification as in fact it seems to have mostly been a collection of struts and supports as you can see from this photo of the preserved example.

There would have been a gearbox or whatever at the front though that is obscured by the spinner. As to painting the instructions say black for the engine and brown for the collector ring but say nothing about the fairing which suggests it should be camo khaki. Those of you who have built kits of RAF machines with radial engines will probably know that on them the collector ring was apparently stainless steel and initially was left unpainted, but the intense heat soon caused it to discolour and it ended up a brown/silver/bronze colour which is how I attempted to paint it on my Hampden below.

Later heatproof paints were used and it seems to have perhaps been grey, or maybe camo colour. The ring and exhaust stubs have been painted Khaki in the above pic, however I believe I have read somewhere that the Poles used normal rather than stainless steel so once the paint burned off it went a sort of rusty brown, as shown in the various profiles in the Mushroom book. I will have to think about how I am going to paint the "fairing" but maybe I will just use camo paint.

 

Pete

Edited July 12, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

So far so good - there is some flash, particularly on the various struts, but the fit is not bad.

 Unlike some of the Revell kits of the period the detailing is fine and the rivets very subdued - you could almost grate cheese on the ones on their Bf109E! They have even managed to represent the access doors for the radio and first aid compartments, though they have done them on both sides of the fuselage which I believe is incorrect, at least for the radio one. You can't see it but under the fuselage behind the engine they have even moulded the circular bottom of the fuel tank, which was in the form of a vertical drum which could apparently be jettisoned assuming the pilot had time to do it before it exploded when hit!

 

Earlier, John mentioned that he seemed to remember the undercarriage being rather fragile and I said it looked quite sturdy. However, it seems that the pins on the legs share the holes you can see below the gun trough with the struts bracing the wing, so that could be a weak point! Looks like I will have to glue the wing on then the bracing struts and the u/c legs pretty much all in one go to ensure they all line up correctly, which could be fun. Before I do that I will paint the underside of the wing and tail in blue/grey.

 

Whilst I was building the kit I happen to read the "splurge" on the box - although the instructions are marked Revell GB the box is the later US version so I don't know if the text is the same. It claims that the P.11 was the first plane to destroy invading German aircraft in WWII, which may well be true, but then goes on to claim that they went on by "downing over thirty per cent of the German Luftwaffe the German during the invasion of Poland" which is almost certainly incorrect. The Mushroom book lists I think 93 kills but another source says 110, and according to my Osprey Campaign book, on the invasion, on September 1st 1939 the Germans had 3368 "combat aircraft" available of which about 64% were involved in Poland, - say 2100. Even assuming up to a third were unserviceable then around 1400 would have actually taken part, so 30% would be over 500, though I suppose it depends on how they define "combat aircraft".  The Polish planes were outclassed and although the pilots fought bravely, I rather suspect that what the box should have said is that they actually brought down about 30% of the 285 losses the Luftwaffe admitted rather than 30% of all the planes involved (the rest of the losses being due to ground fire, accidents etc. I guess). Still, under the circumstances they did pretty well and the Luftwaffe began to realise that it was not going to be as easy as they expected based on their experience in Spain.

 

One other thing I noticed on the box is that in the list of "attributes" of the kit - moveable wheels and prop, clear windshield etc, they included a "collector's 3 view drawing" which is an interesting marketing take - don't know about you but although I know some people collect box art, I certainly never collected the small B&W painting instructions!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[Casey]

https://www.polot.net/pl/pzl_p_11_1931r

[PeterB]

The mounting for the horizontal tail surfaces is a bit unusual, probably as the fuselage is very narrow at the rear. Revell seem to have decided that the normal horizontal tab and slot approach would not work even with shallow offset tabs so instead the tabs are vertical and fit into the sockets you can see on my previous picture, effectively becoming part of the fuselage/vertical tail.

They needed a bit of careful filing to make them fit but they probably give a much larger contact area for glue. So, next up is the wing/undercarriage!

 

Pete

Edited July 13, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Besides being affordable (on a sales course many years ago it was hammered into us never to use the word "cheap"), these kits do not take long to build.

I will leave it to dry then finish off the painting, get the exhaust collector ring and prop on, and that only leaves the windscreen which will go on after the decs.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

So, following up from my original comments about the paintwork, what exactly do we mean by Khaki? I believe that the first use by the British Army was in India (the name comes from the Persian for "soil" and more directly from Urdu for "soil coloured" I gather) in the 19th century and that was a pale stone colour, maybe a bit lighter than the more modern "Khaki drill" for tropical use, but in the WWI trenches it was more of a brown colour, and the French used a colour similar to Olive Drab in WWII on their planes which they called Khaki. I seem to remember reading somewhere, maybe in a Douglas Reeman book on the Royal Marines, that some sailors/Marines dyed their tropical whites in a bucket of strong tea to create their own version of Khaki! have decided to go for the greenish, relatively unfaded version on the PZL P-11c but I have used Colourcoats Khaki Green 03 which was the base camo colour on British tanks and other vehicles early in WWII, as it has a definite brownish tinge, depending on the light and surroundings as you can see below - both taken in artificial light this evening but on different surfaces.

 

Some of the difference is down to my camera, and no doubt it will look different again outdoors in the sun. I have actually painted the exhaust ring in Hu 142 Matt Field Drab which is one of the colours the IPMS Stockholm colour chart suggests for "Light Polish Khaki" as used on fighters, though the article I provided the link for says that would have in fact been a faded version of the green original paint - I did not fancy doing the whole plane in it but it seemed a good idea for the faded condition of the ring after it had been "cooked" for a while.

 

Some touching up still to do but nearly ready for the decs.

 

Pete

Edited July 15, 2022 by PeterB

[stevej60]

Flying along with this one Pete,looking good.

[PeterB]

Still a little touching up to do but this is what it looks like on a sunny day on a brown background!

The two bladed fixed pitch prop was wood and some illustrations including the box art show it as brown, but the painting instructions and most of my sources show it painted black. As you can just see Revell have gone for a 4 gun version, and it appears that all P-11c were intended to have the two extra 7.7mm wing guns, but a shortage of the guns meant only about a third were so fitted.

 

Under the exhaust ring and to the rear of it are as couple of rectangular cut-outs which I believe were for the exhausts, though I have yet to find a photo showing them. However on Scalemates I found the instructions for a larger scale kit of the plane which shows pipes going through the holes so I have glued in some short lengths of tube. There also seems to have been an "L" shaped pitot tube under the Starboard leading edge so I will see about fitting that, probably after the decs are on - at the moment they are back in the window to bleach a little more as they still look a bit yellow. I have painted the frames on the tiny windscreen and will fit that nearer the end of the build.

 

It may be a while before I post again as apparently my wife requires the use of my body - up a ladder decorating!😄

 

Pete

Edited July 15, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Given the slightly elevated temperatures we have been having this week I have been allowed to postpone the decorating slightly - it hit 30^oC downstairs so I suspect it would have been somewhat higher close to the bedroom ceiling!🔥 A few days ago elsewhere in this GB, @Mjwomack mentioned problems with disintegrating decs in his P-39 build so as mine are of a similar vintage I took the precaution of painting on a coat of Liquid Decal Film. That seems to have stopped them breaking up as of yet but unfortunately they seem unwilling to actually stick on the kit, curling up at the edges. In some cases laying them down on a layer of wet varnish seems to work, but for some reason the national insignia refuse to play! They looked fine when I put them on, then started to lift again, perhaps because of the closely packed ribbing on the wings and tail. I will therefore have a shot at some home made ones, though I was not happy with the colour of red on my first batch, and may have put a bit too much varnish on the second set - I will probably find out on Friday.

 

Pete

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

21 minutes ago, PeterB said:

Given the slightly elevated temperatures we have been having this week I have been allowed to postpone the decorating slightly - it hit 30^oC downstairs so I suspect it would have been somewhat higher close to the bedroom ceiling!🔥 A few days ago elsewhere in this GB, @Mjwomack mentioned problems with disintegrating decs in his P-39 build so as mine are of a similar vintage I took the precaution of painting on a coat of Liquid Decal Film. That seems to have stopped them breaking up as of yet but unfortunately they seem unwilling to actually stick on the kit, curling up at the edges. In some cases laying them down on a layer of wet varnish seems to work, but for some reason the national insignia refuse to play! They looked fine when I put them on, then started to lift again, perhaps because of the closely packed ribbing on the wings and tail. I will therefore have a shot at some home made ones, though I was not happy with the colour of red on my first batch, and may have put a bit too much varnish on the second set - I will probably find out on Friday.

 

Pete

Ive used PVA white glue for finicky decals sometimes. 

[Old Man]

3 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Ive used PVA white glue for finicky decals sometimes. 

 

Puddle of Future works for me. Get it down right before you put the decal on. It does tend to grip quick, handling time is only a couple of minutes. Sucks stuff down tight.

[PeterB]

43 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Ive used PVA white glue for finicky decals sometimes. 

 

37 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

Puddle of Future works for me. Get it down right before you put the decal on. It does tend to grip quick, handling time is only a couple of minutes. Sucks stuff down tight.

As you can see Revell have reproduced the corrugated skin of the wing and tail pretty accurately judging by the photos I have in the Mushroom book.

 

Something of a "hostile environment" for decs, which is why I said I was not sure if I had put too thick a layer of varnish on my DIY decs - they may be a bit too stiff to settle down but I will soon see. I used the later version as Future is not available over here, or at least has been re-named more than once and perhaps re-formulated. It worked on the fuselage which is fairly smooth, but not on the wings. Anyway, I had to scrape off the decs so unless I splash out on replacement AM ones I will have to make do with my own version - if they work.

 

Pete

[Old Man]

It was about ten years ago I did one of these with kit decals, and they sucked down fine, it's what sold me on the technique. Revell did some terrific moulding in those days, this being a prime example. The wings on their old N.17 are a wonder.

 

Best of wishes on the home-mades. I didn't realize the stuff was hard to come by over there.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Old Man

[PeterB]

12 hours ago, Old Man said:

It was about ten years ago I did one of these with kit decals, and they sucked down fine, it's what sold me on the technique. Revell did some terrific moulding in those days, this being a prime example. The wings on their old N.17 are a wonder.

 

Best of wishes on the home-mades. I didn't realize the stuff was hard to come by over there.

Same with Windex - it has to be imported though one or two UK based people sell it on Amazon at a hefty price. The last Windex spray I bought about 4 years ago cost me the equivalent of $12US before postage as I recall.

 

Pete

Edited July 22, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Bit of touching up to do to blend them in but it looks like the decs work.

The asymmetric placement of the national markings on the upper ( but not lower) wing surfaces is a bit unusual but apparently accurate according to the photos, and seems to have been done on the Karas and Los as well. Anybody know why they did that?

 

Pete

Edited July 22, 2022 by PeterB

[Richard Humm]

18 hours ago, PeterB said:

 

The asymmetric placement of the national markings on the upper ( but not lower) wing surfaces is a bit unusual but apparently accurate according to the photos, and seems to have been done on the Karas and Los as well. Anybody know why they did that?

 

What I read somewhere was that pilots would tend to aim halfway between the national insignia, so if the insignia was asymmetric, they would miss the fuselage. I can't remember where I got that from though, so it could be complete rubbish.