The P.11c was quite a successful aircraft, and this success translated into a lot of foreign sales, especially amongst those air arms that were somewhat budget constrained, yet needed an effective fighter aircraft.  One of the constraints that PZL faced is that they could not export their P.11a/c aircraft with the Bristol  engines as part of their license agreement with this British company forbade that. In its place, they offered the French Gnome Rhone engine of higher power for their P.24 derivatives. This more powerful engine and the inclusion of an option for cannon as armament made for a most attractive package and the P.24 was a successful export aircraft.

Bulgaria took delivery of 24 P.24B aircraft in early 1939 and armed with two machine guns. These planes were painted in a dark green over light blue with very fetching dark red cowlings and large fuselage stripes. Their use in combat is mostly unknown and it is supposed that they were used only for local defense. Most were destroyed on the ground in a 1944 USAAF bombing raid.

THE KIT

 

Mirage has made the best of its PZL P.11 kit sprues and I believe that this kit concludes the full line of airframes. I would not be surprised to see a P.7 as there are some similarities between the two aircraft that could make use of similar sprues. Now if you compare these sprues with the one for the P.11c, you'll note that there are some similarities. The major difference between this kit and the others is the sprue in the lower left corner. The etched fret is also a bit different as are the resin parts next to them.

This one has a two piece canopy so you can display the canopy open, should you wish. The clear plastic is a bit thick and the small sprue attachments may require some repolishing once they are removed, but they should work well. About the only options I saw on this one were to include the wheel spats or not and the under wing bomb racks, though I'm not sure they are appropriate for the Bulgarian aircraft.

The instructions are well done and include a  number of detailed construction steps. Colors are provided as Humbrol, Vallejo and generic names, which is quite helpful. Markings are provided for three aircraft, though you are given a bunch of additional numbers so that you could do quite a few different planes. For the main colors they are all dark green over light blue. Mirage has provided all the stripes for you on a huge decal sheet, and this includes the different variations of rudder stripes as well as the later (and very boring) black X national insignia. With this later scheme, all the neat dark red bits have been removed so if you are one who doesn't want to bother with all the painting and extra decals, this one may well be the option for you. Decals are very nicely printed and appear to be quite thin.

CONCLUSIONS

Those of us who have built previous PZL P.11/P.24 kits can tell you that this is a very nice model. It has a lot of detail and best of all, it is quite reasonably priced. It is a kit that I can recommend to all but the beginner and for you that want to get used to using photoetched parts, this one would be great to get in some practice.

You can find this kit and many others at