1/72 PZL P.50/I Jastrzab

[rockpaperscissor]

Here we have a 1/72 scale repaint of Maly Modelarz's PZL P.50/I (Jastrzab). This old Bhodan Wasiak designed model languished way, way down towards the bottom of my kit pile for years. It is so ugly, mis-printed and historically inaccurate that I never expected to build it. It has a garish 3 color splinter camouflage scheme (yellow, mid green, light green), a bright blue underside, and dubious squadron markings. The red and white Polish insignia just added to the color riot. This thing made my eyes hurt.

PZL built and tested just one prototype of the P.50, but no other airframes were ever completed. Photographs are virtually non-existent, and there has always been an aura of mystery regarding the exact appearance of the P.50/I prototype. From what little I have managed to research, it was probably painted in an overall light color - grey? with Polish national insignia as the only marking. To me, the 1/48 scale Jastrzab by SuperModel is probably the closest to the prototype.

A couple of months ago I decided to fiddle around in Photoshop with some scans I had made; sort of a play/learn session. I changed the ugly camo paint job to 3 tone grey, and blurred the sharp edges. I made the cowl ring brown, toned down the bright blue underside a bit, and cleaned up the Polish checkerboards. I redid the opaque canopy glazing, and recolored the squadron emblem to that of the Polish First Air Regiment. I thought my repaint version looked pretty sharp so I decided to print it out and see how it went together.

I was in for a very pleasant surprise - what a smoooooth build! Every skin was the right size, the formers were perfect, the fuselage segments butted together evenly. Mr Wasiak really did an exceptional job with this model. Unfortunately, its still totally inaccurate historically - sort of an "if/and/then" model: IF Poland had a few more years before the start of the war, AND the P.50 made it into service without too many modifications, THEN this is what it might have looked like. Kinda sorta.

To display the finished model, I used a paper base textured with a redwood woodgrain, and a Rawen and Paran designed nameplate. The bottom of the base was closed up with "faux felt" (green construction paper). The groundwork is very simple: a hand-painted tarmac section and some static grass glued down over a brown dirt color.

I'm having a ball with these shrunk down, cleaned up old Maly kits. I like this one a lot.

[Don Boose]

That is one outstanding piece of work from start to finish!

The other Don

[gomidefilho]

Very nice and rare subject...