Squadron 1/72 Ep.2 RWD-14 Czapla in a 1/72 scale.

At the start of this article I would to present a short history of this aircraft,.

The RWD-14 Czapla (Polish for Heron) was a Polish army cooperation/lialsion aircraft. According to interwar period Polish Air Force terminology it was called '' an accompanying aircraft''.  Polish Air Force needed a new aircraft of this type to replace Lublin R-XIII starting being obsolete. RWD-14 has a much better performance than Lublin R-XIII but it was designed as temporary solution durning when the new LWS-3 Mewa was under development. RWD-14 performance was still to weak  for a battlefield standards.First prototype was built and performed maiden flight in 1936 . It was build serially in 1938-1939 years. Because of being temporary stop-gap fill just 65 pieces were constructed and Polish Air Force started to order a newer LWS-3 Mewa (Polish for: Seagull) planes. Before September 1939 onlu a few LWS-3 were delivered and operational. In fact RWD-14 was designed not only as an army cooperation aircraft but also as STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) and had a folded wings. RWD-14 were used in combat in 1939 year. Approx 49-51 aircrafts performed combat flights ,35 of them were lost in combat and another 11-14 aircrafts were evacuated to Romania. A single pieces were captured by German and Soviet troops. Few ex-Polish planes were used by Romanian Forces.

 

 

 

Specifications - RWD-14B :

• Powerplant: 1x PZL G-1620B Mors air-cooled radial pistion engine
• Leghth: 9 m (29,6 ft)
• Wingspan : 11.9m ( 39,1 ft)
• Height : 3m ( 9,10 ft)
• Max speed : 247 km/h (153 mph , 133 kt)
• Range : 675 km (419 mi , 364 nmi)
• Service celling : 5100 m (16 700 ft) 
• Armament : 1x fixed ( operated by observer)7,92 mm wz.33 machine gun or 1x fixed VickersK  7,7 mm machine gun 

 

 

Now let's talk about my model of this plane. I made my model for old ZTS Plastyk moulds packed in Mirage Hobby . I don't reccomend this kit for a fresh and unexperienced model builiders. Some oryginal parts in this kit are completly usless because of completly worn out moulds. Some parts I had to craft by myself. And I had to use a lot of  Tamyia putty and sanding paper to clear parts from excess of plastic (called a flash). I added a crew figurines and machine gun (it comes from old PZL.37 bomber model)  from my modelling junk . Build this thing was a real challenge but I made it. And you can see a results of my work on the pics. Enjoy!