Azur PZL.24 B/E - Part I

PZL.24B/E from Azur is a bit unusual in several ways. First of all, the subject itself is a rather unknown airplane - a Polish gullwing monoplane fighter airplane built shortly before start of World War II and intended as the replacement for obsolete PZL P-7:s and 11:s. For some unexplainable reason however, all machines of this type that were build, were sold by Poland to other countries, more precisely to Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Rumania.

Azur's kit makes it possible to make two variants of early B version in Rumanian service and one of later E version in Bulgarian livery. Unfortunately, I managed to delete pictures of the content of the box, but it is a short run kit with both photo-etch and resin parts as well as a vacform cockpit covers. Ergo, it's definitely for beginner modellers and quite a challenge for yours truly.

The construction starts, as usually with the cockpit interior. A lot of tiny parts and a first encounter with photo-etch. Never being a tidy model builder, I tend to struggle with those bits and make a bit of a mess more often than not. The fact that one of resin seat braces turned out to be missing and had to be replaced with tiny styrene strips, while another tiny resin bit supposed to be placed behind instrument panel was swallowed by carpet monsters immediately after being cut from the moulding block didn't improve the results.