1/72 KP Avia B534

by Robert Serfozo

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Heavy fighting took place between the Royal Hungarian Forces and the Slovakian Army near the town of Szobránc on the 24th of March in 1939 A Hungarian panzer column got attacked by a formation of Slovakian Letov light bombers escorted by Avia B.534 fighters. However the Hungarians were ready and the Fiat CR-32-s of the Royal Hungarian Airforce (RHA) encountered the attackers.

A heavy air battle took place between the opposing forces, having shoot down at least  8 enemy aircraft by the Hungarians, using the superior climbing of the Fiat!
Several other Slovakian planes were damaged including the Avia B.534 of Jozef Zachar, who made a crash landing into Hungarian territory. The pilot was captured and the plane was repairable, soon after repair it was sent to Ungvár and then to Budapest.
The plane got the standard, brown-green-grey camo of the RHA and the register letters G.192. This is how this unique airplane got into the RHA, although only for a short period. The aircraft was soon given to civil use, with the letters HA-VAB and with a new camo resembling to the one used on the Héja fighters.  The last time the aircraft was seen it was in this state in Győr during 1944.

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I first saw this airplane in a magazine got on the Kecskemét Air Show in the early '90. It's nice camo, the the unique type got my attention. Then I got the plastic scale form of this plane during the following Mosonmagyaróvár Model Show. Back then the only available copy of this aircraft in 1/72 was made by the Czech (ex-Czechslovakian) company KP (now it's called Kopro).

The kit is a typical Kovozavody Prostejov (KP) kit moulded in light grey with very basic detailing. The cockpit was empty, the panel lines were raised, and the decals were yellow. I planed a huge upgrade on the kit, so I stared collecting resources. Great help to me were the book of the Czech Aeroarchiv, and the book of Jirí Vrany on this type. I got these books from my friend István Vadász, to whom I am very grateful for his help!

After careful study of these books I started with the representing the fabric cover of the airplane. Then I cut off the moving parts of the wings and the stabilizer. I made their moving mechanism using different wires. I opened two little service holes on the wings, and then I made the air intakes on the nose, the radiator under the fuselage and all the edges of the wings thinner.

The cockpit was scratch remade using various materials. Then followed the new machine guns using a needle. Then I cut off the air intake gills and made new ones using metal foil. After joining the fuselage parts I rescribed the panel lines. The followed the canopy, for which I had to make a new one, because the old was soo thick and scratched. The cockpit was painted according to those two books mentioned earlier.

After carefully masking it, followed the joining of the wings with the fuselage. The correction of the upper wing's holders was very challenging just as the correct placing of the holders of the main gear. New exhaust was made using metal foil, just like the cover of the two little service holes. After correcting the shape of the airscrew, I made the small jewel ready for painting.

I used acrylic paints for this. Unfortunately coloured pictures of this plane didn't survived the war, so I studied colour pic of other Hungarian aircrafts painted with the same camo. These colours were Hungarian production in the war, but they resembled very much to the RLM 61,62,63,64 colours of the Luftwaffe, so who paints his model using RML colours can't make a big mistake. However I used my own colour mixed from various colours.

First I gave a grey coat to the plane, which showed the small mistakes before painting. Then the white followed of the tricolor markings. After the white the red and the green came. Then after very careful masking followed the painting of the camo. First the green and the brown. Then a cote of gloss followed, just to make good surface for the decal letter, which I made from 'left-over' decals.

After a cote of flat I used pastel to make the little bird a bit used, although I didn't wanted to make it too dirty, since it was in this colours only for a short time. After it followed a satin cote before removing the masking. After the placing of all the wheels and all the small parts, like pitot tube, radio wire, service hole covers then the canopy and the airscrew followed.

I placed a little canvas in front of the canopy, to simulate the ground crew just wanted prepare the plane for a flight.

After almost a half year of work, the little bird was finally ready! Only after the finish have I heard that a new resin Avia is available now. To sum up I was very pleased to work on this ancient KP kit, and to upgrade it, and I think this plane is one of my favourite in my glass-case!
Greetings,
Robert Serfozo

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Photos and text © by Robert Serfozo