1:72 Gorbunov Go-1 (Bell P-39 “Airacobra”); ‘38’ of the Soviet Air Forces (Военно-воздушные силы, Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily/VVS) 129th GvAIP; Kremenchuk (Poltawa Oblast, Central Ukraine), Spring 1944 (What-if/modified Heller kit)

            The kit and its assembly:
This fever-dream conversion of an innocent Bell P-39 was inspired by a profile drawing of this fictional conversion by fellow modeler and illustrator FrancLab at FlickR, even though it carried typical American markings. An AiraCobra with a radial engine in the place of the original V12 inline powerplant looked so weird and ugly – it had to be built some day. The idea lingered for some months, and when I recently got hands on a cheap Heller P-39 I eventually tackled this stunt. Due to the conversions weirdness I rather decided to change this aircraft’s origins to the Soviet Union – where, in real life, some very AiraCobra-esque projects (e. g. the Gudkov Gu-1, which was a straightforward P-39 clone, or the Belyayev OI-2, a kind of twin-P-39!) appeared on the drawing board. On the other side, there actually was an Italian fighter prototype in WWII with a similar layout, the Piaggio P.119 from 1942, even though it was a tail-sitter

It was soon clear that the profile layout could not be exactly realized, but I stayed true to the concept. The P-39 was basically built OOB, just the area behind the cockpit saw considerable modifications. The original engine bay was cut open and the carburetor intake disappeared. Since the water cooler was not necessary anymore the outer pair of intakes in the wing roots as well as the outer outlets under the wings’ trailing edge disappeared. The intakes and duct in the middle were retained, though, for an oil cooler.

The engine cover consists of a pair of annular radiators from 2 different Fw 190D kits (IIRC, one from Academy and the other from Intech), one of them was reduced in depth. The cooling fan came from a, Italeri BMW 801 engine. At the rear the engine pod is held by a nose fairing from a KP biplane, nicely blended into the fuselage with some PSR- The area behind the cockpit was trimmed down to form intake slits for the radial engine, and also blended with PSR. A new spine fairing behind the cockpit replaced the original clear part.

The only other mods are a better seat in the cockpit, a styrene tube adapter inside the nose (plus lots of lead beads) for the propeller, which was mounted onto a metal axis, and a different drop tank that replaced the teardrop-shaped original, for a different look. The flaps were lowered, too.

Taken on: June 10, 2021

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1945

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Военно-воздушные

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