PZL P.24G by Mirage

1/48 scale
Kit No. 48107
Cost: $25.00
Decals: By Techmod – two versions, both for Royal Hellenic Air Force
Comments: Highly detailed cockpit, complete double row radial engine, engraved panel lines, photo-etch details and resin exhaust collector

History

The PZL (Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze, National Aircraft Works) P.24 was a Polish-built fighter developed in the 1930’s as an export derivative of the PZL P.11, a gull-wing all-metal monoplane designed by Zygmunt Pulawski for the Polish Air Force. Although built in fewer numbers than the P.11, the P.24 was for a time during the 1930’s the fastest and most heavily armed single-seat fighter in the world. It represented the ultimate development of Pulawski’s PZL fighters and saw service in the air forces of Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Turkey.

PZL fighters first drew the attention of the world’s major military powers at the 1930 Paris Air Show with an impressive aerobatic display, facilitated by their innovative wing design, known as “the Pulawski Wing.” The man behind this noteworthy fighter was hired by PZL as its chief designer when the firm opened its doors in 1928. Pulawski, then 27 years old, had graduated with honors from the Department of Mechanics at Warsaw Polytechnic and had been awarded an apprenticeship at the Breguet airplane factory in France. Having graduated in 1927 from Air Officer Cadet Reserve School, where he earned his pilot’s license, he was hired by the Central Aircraft Machine Shops in Warsaw, which later became PZL.

Pulawski’s original fighter design, the P.1, brought both its designer and PLZ recognition due to its innovative gull-shaped wing, which ensured excellent forward visibility from the cockpit, while providing great strength and light weight. Another design innovation was the “scissors” undercarriage, which concealed the shock absorbers within the fuselage, significantly reducing drag. There would be many imitators of the Pulawski wing through the 1930’s and as late as 1941, including the French fighters Loire 43, Loire 45, Arsenal-Delanne 10, Germany’s Henschel Hs 121, Soviet Russia’s Polikarpov I-15 and I-153, Italy’s Romeo 41 fighter and Romeo 43 and 44 seaplanes, and even the American Curtiss F-9c-3 Sparrowhawk.

The PZL P.11 was powered with a license-built Bristol Mercury engine, originally manufactured in Great Britain. When the P.11 began to generate serious interest by potential foreign buyers at international exhibitions and air shows, inquiries about purchasing export versions of the fighter began to come in. Between 1930-33, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, and Yugoslavia all expressed an interest. But Poland did not have the capital to finance large-scale production for export orders, and many countries wanted to pay via in-kind exchanges of goods rather than cash in those early years of the worldwide Great Depression.

Another problem was that the ten-year license agreement with the Bristol Company, under which the Mercury radial engines were built in Poland, prohibited exports of any Bristol-powered aircraft. To free itself from this limitation, PZL decided to design an advanced fighter powered by an engine of a different make, aimed specifically at export markets, and designated the PZL P.24. Ultimately in June 1932 PZL chose the French Gnome-Rhône 14Kds 14-cylinder, double row, supercharged radial engine of 769 hp (570 kW) for the P.24 prototype. Design work began in June 1932, and the prototype flew for the first time in May 1933. Much of the prototype design copied the P.7 then in production, employing the same wings, horizontal stabilizers, rear fuselage and rudder. To correctly locate the center of gravity with the heavier Gnome-Rhône engine, a 45 cm section was added between the wing mounts and the cockpit.

The first flight was brief, cut short after severe vibrations damaged the airscrew, engine bearings and fuel tank attachments. After the forward fuselage was rebuilt and reinforced, flight testing resumed in October 1933. Flight tests led to 150 modifications, which were incorporated into the second P.24/II prototype, named the “Super P.24”, which set an international world speed record for radial engine-powered fighters of 257 mph (414 km/h) on June 28, 1934.

In July 1934 an improved, more powerful Gnome-Rhône 14Kfs of 900 h.p. was installed in the third prototype, the P.24/III, also called the Super P.24bis. It flew for the first time in August, and in October 1934 it was demonstrated to Polish officials and members of foreign missions residing in Warsaw. In December 1934 it was exhibited at the Salon de l’Aeronautique in Paris (known to English speakers as the Paris Air Show), attracting great interest from the participants. With its high (for the time) top speed and two Swiss-made 20mm Oerlikon cannon combined with two 7.92mm Colt-Browning machine gun armament, it was regarded as the fastest and best armed interceptor in the world. The French Armee de l’Air continued to show interest, but there was strong resistance within the French government to foreign aircraft, and a number of French manufacturers had developed copies of the PZL, so no sales to France were ever made.

The P.24 was conventional in layout, with high wings and all-metal construction. The gull-wings had a thin profile close to the fuselage, providing the pilot with good visibility. The canopy was closed (apart from prototypes). An internal 360-liter fuel tank in the fuselage could be jettisoned in case of emergency. It had conventional fixed landing gear, with a rear skid. The armament was a combination of 20 mm Oerlikon FF cannon and 7.92 mm Colt-Browning machine guns in the wings.

On November 16, 1936 the Greek government signed a contract with PZL for delivery of thirty-six P.24’s. Based on experience gained from Turkish Air Force operations, the windscreen was replaced with 35mm bullet-proof glass, and a 7mm armor plate was installed behind the pilot’s seat and headrest. In addition, a second oil cooler was installed on the port side of the fuselage. The Greek PZL’s were first flown publicly during the aerial ceremonies for Independence Day on March 21, 1938, and became the primary fighter in the inventory of the Royal Hellenic Air Force. In 1940 the P.24F’s were converted to the P.24G configuration, the armament being changed to four 7.92mm machine guns due to the difficulty obtaining ammunition and spare parts for the 20mm Oerlikon cannon since the outbreak of war in Europe.

Operational Record

As the P.24 was developed specifically for export and never entered service with the Polish Air Force, only a single machine, most likely a prototype, fought in the 1939 Polish campaign against the Luftwaffe. On September 14tn and again on the 15th, this P.24 flown by a Lieutenant Szczesny shot down two German aircraft. The P.24’s of the Royal Hellenic Air Force, however, had an impressive record. Greece was one of the export customers, and at the time of the October 28, 1940 Italian invasion of Greece, the Greek fighter force consisted of 36 P.24’s, 9 Bloch MB-151’s, and two Gloster Gladiators. The MB-151 squadron was still in training, so the defense of Greece against the Regia Aeronautica fell almost entirely on the P.24’s, only 24 of which were combat-ready. In the first air combat on November 1st, a P.24 shot down a three-engined Italian Cant Z.1007bis over Thessaloniki. Their biggest success came the following day, when Greek pilots shot down eight Cant Z.1007bis bombers, one Savoia S.81 bomber and one Fiat CR 42 fighter, in exchange for a loss of six P.24’s.

In the coming days, P.24s fared well against Italian formations attacking Salonika. In one such action, Lt. Marinos Mitralexis of No. 22 Squadron, out of ammunition, smashed the tail of a Savoia-Marchetti S.M. 79 bomber with the airscrew of his P.24, forcing the enemy crew to bail out. Over the next four months, despite diminishing numbers and lack of spare parts, P.24’s, aided by RAF aircraft, continued to frustrate the Italians’ efforts to achieve air supremacy, causing Mussolini political embarassment and prompting Hitler to intervene. Only 19 P.24’s remained when the Germans invaded Greece on April 6, 1941. These aircraft continued to fight, downing a Junkers Ju 87 and a Henschel Hs 126 on April 14 without loss. When concerted Luftwaffe attacks began on April 19, only 13 P.24’s were combat worthy, and these were all destroyed by April 23rd, the day of the final surrender. While there have been reports that the last airworthy P.24’s, possibly only one of them, flew to Crete, this has never been substantiated.

The P.24 was roughly 80 mph slower than the Messerschmitt Bf109, but was far more manueverable, and used this to good advantage in air engagements. In time, Luftwaffe pilots learned not to get into a turning fight with the agile P.24, and instead exploited their speed advantage. Most official war records were lost or destroyed following the German victory in Greece, but it is estimated that one-third of all enemy aircraft destroyed in the Greek Campaign fell to the guns of the agile and robust PZL P.24 with their distinctive Pulawski wings, earning the lasting admiration of Greek pilots.

Construction

For a preview of this kit, click here. This is a great kit, full of rich detail that rivals Tamiya, but modelers should be aware that it has a number of little glitches, one of which is that the various steps in the kit instructions are inconsistent in whether they identify the parts by number — which can be more more than a minor irritant when you can’t locate a part on the sprue based on the illustration in the instructions alone. In one case I gave up the search and fashioned a part from scratch. 

A fit issue arose right out the the gate on Step 1. You begin with the airscrew, consisting of four parts: the propeller and shaft which are molded as one piece, two collars, and an anchor to cement the end of the shaft into so that the propeller will rotate once the assembly is complete. It should be noted at the outset that the propeller shaft is not long enough to fit through both the collars and not be cemented in place, because there is not enough of it protruding from the back of the second, larger collar to fit into the anchor without glue getting on the second collar as well. Propellers don’t rotate on many aircraft kits, so this was hardly a deal-breaker, just something to be aware of.

The double row radial engine is nicely detailed but the push rods in my opinion are a tiny bit large for the scale and do not fit as well as they could when you are cementing them into place. This is not a major flaw since you cannot see much of it except for the outer third of the first row of cylinders once the engine is fully assembled and the cowling fitted on. The pilot’s seat is a highly detailed affair, consisting of a seat, headboard and rod, with photo etch parts for seat belts, seat supports, and a right hand lever, connected by the rod which runs under the front of the seat to a small PE wheel — these latter three parts apparently being for seat adjustment.

There are also a pair of resin oil coolers of two different sizes which are cemented to the left side of the fuselage and require fitting with 0.3mm aftermarket wire. I painted these parts gunmetal and used gold 0.3mm wire from Verlinden and it adds a nice bit of detail. The pilot’s seat is attached to the fuselage via the headboard, to which PE seat straps are also cemented, and is not otherwise anchored to the fuselage in any way. The cockpit has a separately mounted floor consisting largely of two connected runners for the pilot to rest his feet on, with an optional PE detail part and a PE instrument panel with a film insert for the dials, along with a separate stick and rudder pedals. At this stage one or two PE parts are also cemented to the fuselage exterior.

The Pulaski wing is itself exquisitely detailed, but also has a few PE detail parts, two of which are critical to fitting the radio aerial properly, as the aerial runs from a small post on an outer wing section to the tail and back out to an opposing post on an outer section of the opposite wing. There are two large fairings to cement to the ventral surface of the wing for the inboard 20mm cannon, and two smaller fairings for spent casing ejectors for the two outboard 20mm guns. Care must be taken to position these fairings correctly, I highly recommend referring to reference photos and not relying on the kit instructions alone, as they are not always accurate. Gun barrels are provided also, which again, must be positioned with care.

There is an option to build the landing gear with or without the spats. I chose to use the spats, which assembled easily enough, but there is no schematic providing guidance as to how they should be positioned when you attach them to the rather spindly V struts of the main landing gear. The V struts may be to scale, but they are not terribly strong and I was constantly concerned that they would not hold the weight of the fuselage. A head on view would have been most helpful when it came to positioning the spats, but I positioned them as best I could based on reference photos, and I am not sure they are quite accurate.

The engine, cowling and exhaust collector are the only areas where at least intermediate modeling skills are required. The cowling comes in two halves and is rather thin, although not too thin for the scale. I used Tamiya Extra Thin Cement on it, and it still required seam hiding using Mr. Surfacer 500. I then test-mounted the engine to the front of the fuselage using Elmer’s Glue. I found that the fairings for the locator pins on the cowling interior are bulky enough that they completely prevented the cowling from fitting over the engine. I had to sand those internal fairings down using a Dremel tool at low speed, then repair the cowling again since I had cracked it tyring to get it over the engine. After another round of Tamiya Cement, putty and sanding, the cowling was again pristine and fit nicely over the engine.

The next challenge was the exhaust collector ring, which is a cast resin part in two halves. After separating it from its blocks and cleaning it up, I painted it Model Master Rust (enamel) by hand, then airbrushed on a layer of Alclad II Exhaust Manifold, a lacquer that is good for depicting light rust with a metallic finish. Then I gave it a wash of Model Master Rust, this time the acrylic version. The end result came out just right, to my eye. This was the easy part; when it came to affixing the exhaust collector halves, after the airframe had been painted, the instructions were not much help as to how to attach it.

There were no clear contact points for exhaust collector to adhere to the radial engine, and it was not possible to cement the exhaust collector to the cowling and still get the cowling to fit over the engine. Ultimately I went ahead and cemented the cowling on, then cemented the exhaust collector to the rear row of double-rowed pistons after the cowling had been cemented over the engine, one half at a time. This was a lengthy and awkward process, using tweezers to wedge the exhaust collectors between the fuselage and the rear opening of the cowling, and holding it in the correct position long enough to let the cement on the front of the collector fuse it to the rear of the engine, all without getting glue on the fuselage. Incredibly, I met with success. I have to admit I used liberal amounts of glue, which fortunately cannot be seen, but to quote David Niven in The Guns of Navarone, it was the only way I knew to get the job done.

Painting

The airframe is airbrushed entirely in Polly Scale acrylics. The camouflage scheme consists of Earth Red (505366) and Military Green — a color I can only identify by that name since I purhased the bottle back in 1981 and the label and manufacturer’s number are long gone, it is close in hue to Dark Green RLM 82 — over Light Blue (505396) under surfaces.

Markings

The kit decals are by Techmod and are in a word, excellent. They are fully in register with vibrant color, no bleeding, and react well to decal solvent. The markings I chose are for a PZL P.24G of the Royal Hellenic Air Force based on Saloniki-Sedes aerodrome, circa 1940.

 

Conclusion

This is an excellent version of the PZL P.24, the best known of the Polish fighters produced by the Warsaw-based Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze (National Aircraft Works) during the 1930’s, and the most detailed kit of the type in 1/48 scale. Highly recommended.

References

• Profile Publications Number 170: The PZL P.24
• PZL P.24 A-G by Andrzej Glass and Tassos Katsikas; Copyright Kagero Publishing, Lublin, Poland (no date provided)