RS Models' 1/72 scale
Praga E.39

by Mark Davies

Eduard's 1/72 scale Lavochkin La-7 is available online from Squadron.com

The Praga E.39 was first flown in June 1931. It went into production for both as a military trainer and civil aero club aircraft. Various production batches were powered by German Walter Gemma or British Armstrong Siddeley Genet Major radial engines. German occupation saw the E.39 being produced for Slovakian Air Force and the Luftwaffe as trainers and reconnaissance aircraft on the Eastern Front. Some were also sold to Hungary for aero club use.

I like to build unusual aircraft, and aside from being a lesser known design the Praga E.39 is interesting because its top wing is smaller than its lower wing, and has no ailerons. These characteristics and the fact that it would add to my expanding collection of Czechoslovakian aircraft was all the persuasion I needed to buy it from Modelimex who I find to be a very good source of lesser known Czech brands.

I have several RS Models injected kits and find them generally well designed, the limited run injected parts are generally on par with Special Hobby, and they usually come with generally useful photo-etched details. In the case of the E.39 I felt that the wing rib effect was too deep and exaggerated to get away with one of the attractive aluminium dope schemes featured in the eight decal options. I chose therefore to build a Czechoslovakian machine with grey-green squiggles over the aluminium dope as this would obscure the furrows between the wing ribs (on the upper surfaces at least).
 

Assembly was very straight forward, as was painting and decaling. However I chose to make my own pushrods for the engine rather than use the 2-dimensional photo-etched pushrod provided with the kit (This was by nature very flimsy, and when I tried to use it to see what it would look like I bent it out of shape).

The decals were typical Czech products, very thin with good opacity, and not needing any solvents. The model was rigged with clear stretched sprue and white glue.

This is the second RS models kit I have built, and I look forward to building some more.

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Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2007 by Mark Davies
Page Created 13 June, 2007
Last Updated 24 December, 2007

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