The history
Zygmunt Puławski’s gull-winged PZL P.11 was one of the most advanced fighters of the early 1930s, but its Bristol Mercury engine licence did not allow export sales. PZL answered with the P.24, an export version powered by a French Gnome-Rhône radial. The first prototype flew in May 1933, and the type was sold to Turkey, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, though never to the Polish Air Force itself.
Turkey was one of its main customers. In 1936 it bought 40 P.24A and P.24C fighters from PZL together with a licence, and more were built at the Kayseri aircraft factory. They and they equipped the fighter companies of the Turkish Air Force in the second half of the 1930s. They were withdrawn in 1943, when Hawker Hurricanes replaced them.
The only P.24 left anywhere in the world is a Turkish aircraft, preserved at the Istanbul Aviation Museum in Yeşilköy.
The build
Built from Mirage Hobby’s 1/48 kit, which offers Turkish markings, as aircraft 2014: the same machine as the wartime photo at the top of this page. The finish is natural metal over a black base, with the red squares and the Turkish flag on the rudder.
Paint
Side by side
The model above, the real 2014 below, in the same pose.
Finished
