Beyond The Sprues
Current and Finished Projects => Physical Models => Aero-space => Topic started by: Acree on May 07, 2015, 12:54:10 PM
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On November 13, 1962, the Miami Field Office of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation was called in on a mysterious find in the Everglades. A local sportsman had stumbled across an all-black airplane in a clearing. The fisherman had called the game warden, who notified the Dade County sheriff. The deputy who was dispatched presumed he was going to see an old abandoned wreck in the swamp, but when he arrived he was surprised to discover, not a moss-covered, rusted and rotted out old Cessna, but a mysterious, all black airplane that had clearly not been in the swamp for long. Even more mysterious, the airplane had no registration and no engine!
The sheriff's department called in the FBI who promptly took over the investigation. The FBI Special Agent in charge took photos of the airplane to nearby Homestead AFB, where the intel shop identified it as a PZL-Mielec SK-1 (SK = szybowiec komandosów [commando glider]). The SK-1 had been developed especially to support special operations forces of the Warsaw Pact nations. It was able to carry 6 commandos, plus pilot and copilot, along with 450 kilograms of weapons and supplies. Unusually for a glider, the SK-1 was equipped with a 23 mm gun, intended to clear landing zones on approach; but what was particularly unique was that it could be quickly and easily dismounted to become an infantry support weapon when needed. PZL-Mielec built over 200 SK-1s which eventually received the NATO reporting name "Malt," though it remained a fairly unknown aircraft. Many were exported in small numbers to various Soviet client states, including Cuba, and more than 75 went to North Korea. Most Malts were finished in overall black paint with minimal markings, and the model shown below represents the Cuban example discovered in the Everglades in 1962.
The model: I purchased the HobbyBoss 1/72 Mi2URN at a sale price for it's rotor assembly, which I will use in the upcoming VTOL GB, but that left me with some very nice, if quirky-shaped fuselage pieces. It was a simple matter (sort of) to mate some surplus F6F wings, Kingfisher horizontal stabilizers and Corsair horizontal stabilizer as the vertical tail to convert the Mi-2 fuselage into a stealthy(?) commando support glider!
Hope you like it!
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nice! I like the wing tip skids. I think this is the one Mi helo I never saw as a plane. nice work!
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Cool. Nice work
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Cool, a real blast from the past concept but in a mass Soviet airborne assault against NATO it would actually be viable.
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That is ingenious! Nicely executed.
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Yes, nicely done and very plausible
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Excellent work! Your short but very descriptive 'Evil Genius Level' back story allows the imagination to ponder what could have been.
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Nice work: I like helo-to-fixed-wing conversions and vice-versa. :)
Excellent work! Your short but very descriptive 'Evil Genius Level' back story allows the imagination to ponder what could have been.
Yep - a good mystery is better than a lame explanation.
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:-* :-* :-* Wonderful mix! :-* :-* :-*
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Thanks guys for all the encouraging words. It was a fun build. Glad you like it!
Chuck
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Thanks guys for all the encouraging words. It was a fun build. Glad you like it!
Chuck
Fun for you building + fun for us discovering the result... this is Heaven! ;)
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Very nice! And the back story is brilliant too !!
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I like.
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It's so good, I'm Malting!!! ;)
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Its a good thing you didn't draw this build out into a long thread otherwise I might have been forced to refer to the instalments as ...
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/Maltesers-Wrapper-Small.jpg)
Yeah, I know ...door to the right... ;D
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Very nice! It's easy to envision a powered version with a pair of pusher props :)
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This is a fantastic kit bash. Add engines and it would look a bit like an AN-14/AN-28.
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Beautiful kitbash and enjoyable back story, just enough to tease and draw you in.
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I almost hate to say this, but dang is that cute!
Well done, Chuck!
Brian da Basher