Following on from their excellent Grunau Baby II, Polish resin kit producer Ardpol has announced two very interesting new additions to its range.

There are no details of the release dates yet - Ardpol's website merely states "soon", but the new kits will be particularly welcomed by modellers of early Eastern Block aircraft.

Kit 72-057 BZ-4 Zuk - a Polish 4-seat helicopter which was first unveiled to the public in August 1956

Kit 48-202 Yak-23 - a postwar lightweight jet fighter powered by a Russian copy of the Rolls Royce Derwent engine. It first flew in 1947 and entered service in 1949. The kit will include Russian, Polish and US markings. US markings? Yes, a single Yak-23 was apparently smuggled out of Yugoslavia in 1953 for secret testing in America. Great efforts were made to disguise the identity of the aircraft and, when it was spotted by a flight of F-86s, the story was put out that it was a Bell X-5. After the tests, the Yak was re-painted in its original scheme and shipped back to Yugoslavia!

Watch out for more details as they become available.