maltadefender Posted March 13, 2011 Author Share Posted March 13, 2011 Slow progress this week as I've started a new job and my daughters are here for the weekend. Sometimes good things happen in 1:1 life! Overall happy with the progress so far and will put some pics up in a day or two... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ollieholmes Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 Keep up the modelling, id like to do something similler in 1:48 sometime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maltadefender Posted March 19, 2011 Author Share Posted March 19, 2011 Plugging onward this weekend - the target is to finish the first three and get the Mk.VIII together properly in between servicing my car! Some fantastic work going on elsewhere here though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliffB Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 (the Spits, not the car servicing!) Cliff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundowner14 Posted August 28, 2013 Share Posted August 28, 2013 My third build will be Mk.Ia R7205, flown by Pilot Officer Jaroslav Muzika of 313 (Czech) Squadron in the summer of 1941. The Spitfire carried Muzika’s slogan ‘Provident’ and was crashed by him on returning to RAF Leconfield on 9 August 1941 after the undercarriage collapsed. Like my pair of Piece of Cake Spitfire Mk.IXs, this is another build inspired by a film – in this case Dark Blue World, the Czech-made story of her airmen in World War 2. It was made on a budget and that shows, but was quite brilliantly done. It uses lots of footage from The Battle of Britain, with the result that the ‘Czech’ aircraft all carry identification letters from the 1969 movie - a good way of getting lots of action footage! I’ll make no secret that I love the Czech Republic - a it’s a beautiful country. Its unpretentious, welcoming and rich with history and culture – so a movie about Czechs and Spitfires is fine by me - and well worth a build to commemorate. The central story of Dark Blue World is of the airmen who, upon returning to their homeland in 1945, were soon out of favour with the Communist authorities and often incarcerated as potential threats to the regime. Conditions were brutal and many men died and it is only recently that they have been recognised as war heroes at all. In real life, Jaroslav Muzika was spared this fate. He survived crashing R7205 and ended up in command of ‘A’ Flight of 312 Squadron from October 1942-August 1943 before being promoted to Squadron Leader and taking over 313 Squadron before the end of the war. He was one of the 300 surviving Czech airmen who flew home to a country that had changed beyond all recognition at the end of the war, but he was spared the fate of imprisonment that befell the central character in Dark Blue World. Instead, Muzika engineered a famous escape to the west in 1949. On April 22 1949, after months of planning, ex-311 Squadron navigator Jaroslav Nýč took off on a routine patrol in a Czechoslovakian Air Force Siebel Si 204 twin-engined reconnaissance aircraft from Pardubice military airfield. He flew to a small flying club at Náchod near Vysokov where Muzika, together with ex-313 Squadron pilot Oldřich Filip, ex-311 Squadron navigator Miroslav Laštovka, their four wives and two children were waiting after camping in a nearby forest, disabling the telephone lines and overpowering a suspicious guard. With that the dangerously-overloaded aircraft made off – flying over East Germany and ending up landing at RAF Manston. Upon landing Muzika, acting as spokesman for the group, said: “Only 20 out of the 300 ex RAF airmen who returned to their native Czechoslovakia in 1945 are now still serving in the Czechoslovak Air Force. The rest have either escaped from the country or have been arrested.” The Siebel was eventually repatriated, although the airmen refused to foot the bill for the fuel they 'stole' claiming it as their reward for six years of fighting against fascism! As a result of this escape, the Communist authorities banned all flying activities at Náchod airstrip and Major Formanek, who had been in the Pardubice control tower when Jaroslav Nýč initally took off, received a long prison sentence for his negligence whilst on duty. I'm using the Airfix Mk.I (new tool) for this build, together with MDP decals. She will be painted Dark Earth/Dark Green/Sky with Sky spinner and tail band - I'll start work on this one during gaps in the build of the two Mk.IXs! Tonight, I found out that my son's girlfriend's father is Jaroslav's son. Next modelling project sorted!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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