Plan Download Page
PZL P.24
My old peanut scale PZL P.24, built from Pres Bruning's plan was a good flyer, and it's a type I rather like, so I thought it would
make an unusual aircraft for the FAC WW2 mass launch event - the Romanian P.24F's saw action defending Bucharest against Soviet bombing raids.
The model is 1/24 scale, giving a wingspan of 18 inches. This is a bit smaller than ideal for FAC combat but was sized to fit in my model box.
As you can see, the model wing has a cracked rib construction which has to be built on a custom angled board, easily made from a couple of pieces of 1/4" balsa
or similar.
The forward upper fuselage was left uncovered until the
covered and doped wing was glued in position at 3 degrees positive incidence (the angle is set by the centre keel).
Then the upper stringers in front of the canopy are glued in place extending to the wing upper surface. After finishing the fuselage covering,
the fuselage to wing blend looks reasonably convincing.
incidentally, the best way of keeping the wing panels flat while water shrinking is to pin them down onto the building jig.
To fair in the front of the wing, which is sitting in mid-air, a small balsa filler piece and two small curved paper
fairings were added (this isn't detailed on the plan but you can just see it on the photos above and below).
Some useful underside details are shown in this view, including the fuselage radiator, wing struts and fairings, plus the bulges under the wing guns.
My aircraft only carried two machine guns, but most machines carried four (as shown on the plan).
The Romanian scheme is really attractive with its colourful markings and yellow painted areas which should also make the model easier to find in the grass.
The Azur 1/72nd scale kit is an excellent reference if you can find one. Here is the box art and below is
the rear, showing the three colour scheme options on the decal sheet.
The Royal Hellenic Air Force also used the PZL P.24 in WW 2, though they used the P.24G version, which has a differently shaped engine cowling,
a prop spinner and a different radiator arrangement. Azur released their 1/72nd scale kit in these markings as well - see below - and again this
makes a very useful reference. I have drawn up the Greek version on a separate plan to avoid confusion.
The three plan sheets for each version are A3 size, and can be tiled to suit the paper in your printer using Acrobat reader.