The Little World

When I decide to gamble, I do not hold myself back. Whether it is the race horses, the roulette table, or plastic model kits, I just open my wallet and let myself go. I spent 3.23 złoty on this Polish fighter plane and I am not ashamed to admit it.

The gamble, of course, is whether it will be a buildable kit, and what level of detail will be evident. I did not get a chance to inspect the contents of the kit box before handing over the coin so it was a blind bet.

Wen I got it home I opened the slightly crushed container to reveal two sprue trees, an instruction sheet written in Polish, and a large decal sheet. There was surprisingly little flash, few marks of mis-registration, and only a slight loss of detail on the top of the gull wing.

The plastic is hard, without being brittle. About the same as 1960’s Airfix…indeed the quality level of this kit is reminiscent of this era, though I think it is native to Poland. The nearest I can make out as to the manufacturer is PZW 72, or Polskie Zakłady Wytwórcze. The Google translation tells me this is Polish Betting Manufacturing…hence the title of this column. If you can enlighten me, please do.

The fighter plane is similar to a couple others produced before WW2 – I have other models of this design family, and they are admirable looking. This kit is missing only the windscreen, and that is an easy scratch job. I selected it from the stash so that it could be built before the end of the week – start Monday and go hard. My birthday is Friday and I want the bench clear for whatever kits may arrive…

The nice thing is this kit also has a prototype in a Polish air museum in Krakow, so getting accurate photos from the net is easy.