Author: Pavel Šenk

For some, the iconic British World War II fighter is the Spitfire, but for me, it’s the Hawker Hurricane. I almost always think of the movie Battle of Britain when I look at it, and the picture of the victorious night fight of the Hurricane over the Heinkel 111, which comes from Mr. Velc and was printed on the Směr kit box in the eighties of the 20th century. Almost every boy who was making models back then had this particular black cannon-equipped Hurricane in his display case…

The British de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito multipurpose aircraft was built in 1938-1940 and entered service in 1941. It was used as a light bomber, night and day fighter and reconnaissance aircraft. Its mostly wooden construction and high flight speed earned it the nickname “Wooden Wonder”. The Mosquitos FB Mk.VI and T.Mk.III were in the Czechoslovak service between 1945-1953 under designations B-36 (CB-36).

The Lockheed Vega was a single-engine fixed-carriage high-wing monoplane designed and flown in 1927 by the Lockheed Aircraft Company. Thanks to its extraordinary performance in those days, this machine went down in aviation history with many record-breaking flights. Names associated with Vega include Amelia Mary Earhart (the Lady Lindy machine, the first woman’s flight across the Atlantic), Wiley Post (the Winnie Mae machine, the first flight and solo flight around the world), or the polar aviators George Hubert Wilkins and Carl Ben Eielson (the first flight across the Arctic). The yellow-red Shell Oil Company machine was also piloted in the 1930s by the later US General James Harold “Jimmy” Doolittle.

Spirit of St. Louis was the plane that Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic in May 1927. Originally designated Ryan NYP, the high-wing, strut-braced monoplane was designed by Donald Hall of Ryan Airlines based on the Ryan M-2 and was named after the city of St. Louis, because the city participated financially in its construction. For my model, I chose the appearance of the machine from Charles Lindbergh’s promotional tour of the States and Latin America in 1927-1928.

RWD-8 was a Polish parasol wing monoplane trainer aircraft used as a training and sports plane. The type was designed in the early 1930s by the RWD design office (Rogalski, Wigura, Drzewiecki). It became the most numerous type of aircraft manufactured in interwar Poland, and between 1934 – 1939 it was widely used by the Polish Air Force and also civilian owners, especially aeroclubs.

VBS Kuňkadlo is a Czechoslovak light single-seater sports aircraft. It was built by brothers Vladimír and Bohuslav Šimůnek between 1924 and 1926. The aircraft can be seen in today’s permanent exhibition at the National Technical Museum in Prague.