¹⁄48

July MOM winner

history

The PZL.46 Sum (wels catfish) was designed by Stanisław Prauss in the PZL works as a successor to standard Polish light bomber and reconnaissance plane, the PZL.23 Karaś, also of Prauss' design. First sketches were made in 1936. In order to test new features, like double tail fins and retractable underbelly bombardier gondola, a single modified PZL.23, designated PZL.42 was built and tested in 1936.

The first prototype of PZL.46 Sum flew in August 1938. It shared only a general composition with Karaś, its fuselage was much more aerodynamically refined and wings had thinner profile. Initially it was intended to use retractable landing gear, but since the Polish industry did not produce proper landing gear, a fixed one was used. In November-December 1938 the prototype was shown at the Paris Air Show. In May 1939 the second similar prototype was flown (PZL.46/II).

Tests proved, that Sum was a successful design, with much better performance, than Karaś. The only major faults were with a mechanism of retracting of the underbelly gondola (the gondola for a bombardier, with a machine gun at the rear, was a feature copied from Karaś, where it was a fixed one. It was rare feature in light bombers' construction and its usefulness was questionable, as it reduced performance).

In March 1939 the PZL.46 was ordered for a serial production. The Polish Air Force planned to buy 160 aircraft in a variant PZL.46A. First were to be delivered in early 1940. Only some parts were produced by the time of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.

History courtesy of Wikipedia

the kit

This is real blast from the past- old vacu from Polish little known producer 'Miniplast', the only in this scale. The plane is PZL.46 Sum (Catfish)- projected light bomber of the Polish Air Force before World War II. As you may known, Sum was a successor to standard Polish light bomber and reconnaissance plane, the PZL.23 Karaś. Only a few was build. My model is in What If camouflage, but in March 1939 the PZL.46 was ordered for a serial production. The PAF planned to buy 160 aircraft. First were to be delivered in early 1940. So, my plane is from the end of 1940, with markings of 41 Battle Flight, 4 Air Regiment in Toruń.

Some say that Miniplast's Sum is one of the best vacu ever produced in Europe. But it is still vacu, so you have to put in more work to get decent result. I changed a little interior (it's still hypothetical because we have no photo of the real thing, instead I used images of the cabin of PZL-23 and PZL-43)I re-arranged the engine also, using resin cylinders. Brass rod pins have been fitted to the ailerons to simulate the stick deflection in the cockpit.

One of the most original designs in this construction was the bombardier's combat station in a gondola underneath the fuselage, where he also operated an underbelly machine gun. The gondola could be retracted into the fuselage to decrease drag. It is also one of the mysteries of this plane. Using as refference only blurring images and conflicting information from different books I bulid my gondola in the open position.I also created the bomb racks and used six P.u.W. 100 kg polish bombs from the PZL-37 Łoś model. But don'to forget Mirge's fantastic set of Polish and German bombs in 1/48, so the choice is yours...Using the plans I added and changed some of the panel lines, rescribing them. Miniplast gave us two machine guns, but it's really hard to recreate so delicate parts in vacu, so I used photo- etched Part's set of wz. 37 machine guns.

The most enjoyable of this work was painting.The choice of the painting scheme was not difficult. Before II WW Polish Air Force used on the airplanes only one scheme: upper surfaces in khaki, lower surfaces in blue. I used Pactra paints of different variations of Polish Blue and Polish Khaki. I tried to simulate plane in the war conditions, so some chipping and pigments was used. It was a difficult task but it gave me a lot of satisfaction