Azur/Frrom 1/72 PZL P.11f  'In Rumania'

The PZL P.11 was a Polish fighter aircraft, designed in the early 1930s by PZL in Warsaw. It was briefly considered to be the most advanced fighter aircraft design in the world. The PZL P.11 served as Poland's primary fighter defence in the Polish campaign of 1939, but by that point was outdated due to rapid advances in aircraft design in comparison to more advanced contemporary fighters, including the Hawker Hurricane and Messerschmitt Bf 109.

The P.11 and its slightly faster brother, the P.24, were good sellers in the overseas market. The P.11 was operated by both Bulgaria and Romania with the latter obtaining a production license under the designation P.11f.  Eighty aircraft, powered by 443.7 kW (595 hp) I.A.R. 9K Mistral engines, built as licence production by I.A.R. in Romania. Despite their obsolescence at the start of Romania's entrance into WWII, they were useful aircraft and had some successes against the Soviets.

There have been several P.11 kits in 1/72 from a variety of manufacturers in both injected plastic, resin and vacuformed plastic. Your editor built the Heller version many years back and while nice, it was a bit crude compared to modern kits.

This particular kit puts all previous efforts to shame. The kit is superbly molded by AZUR/Frrom and allows one of five different aircraft to be built. The major difference between this one and a standard P.11c is the engine, which in this case is an IAR built single row Gnome-Rhone 9 cylinder radial. This was an extremely popular French engine of the time and powered a staggering number of aircraft. 

The kit comes on two grey injected sprues with a clear sprue for the one-piece windscreen. Several resin sprues contain exhaust, oil coolant radiators, engine gearbox hub, machine guns, shell ejector chutes and some other very small items. The etched fret includes the straps that go over the radiators, trim tabs, control hinges, seat harness, rudder pedals,  and a few other detail items. 

There are additional bits on the sprues that you do not need as they are not germane to the P.11f. I found it to be a nice option that resin skis are provided as a couple of these aircraft were operated on skis during their lifespan. A few things I noticed. One is that there are ejector towers on all the large pieces. This means the inside of the fuselage and the inside of the upper and lower wing halves so you will need to remove those. I was also impressed at how well the corrugated surfaces were done. Thankfully,  these corrugations do not extend over the wing leading edges. I also noticed that there are no pushrods on the engine, nor do the instructions show these needing to be added. It will add a lot to the engine if these are added; at least to the front row, but it is your choice. This would have been a nice p.e. or resin addition. 

Markings are provided for five aircraft. All are in an olive green/khaki upper with light blue undersides. Cowlings, lower wing tips and fuselage bands are in yellow. Two of the options also have red fuselage bands behind the cockpit. These planes also have a red stripe atop one wing. A further two have rudder stripes. All are from the late 1941 time period. Something that is always interesting is that there are several different sizes and designs for the insignia used on these aircraft so one will need to pay attention to what goes on which option when one makes their choice. The decal sheet is superbly printed by Aviprint and will be quite thin.

This is another superb kit of an aircraft that was important to nations of central Europe in the late 1930s and early 1940s. If it is anything like the P.24 I built a few years back, it will result in a superb replica.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PZL_P.11

November 2013