Mraz K-65 - a post-war tow plane

by Csaba Fodor 

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The "Cap" was the Czechoslovakian version of the well-known German Fi-156. The Hungarian War Department bought a Mraz K-65 in 1949 to provide a light, multipurpose aircraft for the general staff.  They used the plane to fly to countryside airports.  The plane has painted overall in green.  In 1952 the War Department donated the "Cap" to the Hungarian Flying Club.  The three year old aircraft was painted overall light-grey with a civil registration (HA-GOA).   Usually it flew in Esztergom because there was an civil aircraft factory The new gliders were towed  by the "Cap".

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It temporarily got  an Arado propeller because it was more economic.  In 1954 the plane was maintained by  the workers of the aircraft factory in Esztergom.  It got back the original propeller, new windows and overall light-sand paint with black anti-glare panel.
Towing pilots liked the plane because it was powerful and reliable.  The plane was able to tow three gliders at the same time.  In 1957 it got the last paint scheme, overall light grey with red-white strips on the upper side of wings. This  striped paint scheme was very common on tow planes.  I built the plane with this spectacular painting.

I selected the Academy Storch kit because it was cheap and easy-to-purchase.  In the box there are 3 sprues of around 50 parts molded in grey colour.  The parts are nicely molded with lots of details. Although the whole kit seemed to be good, I found some minor problems.  The fabric covering of wings and fins is not faithful and the rear parts of windows had bad fit.   The  flaps and  ailerons are molded into the wing but  in the real life the Storch has slotted ailerons and flaps.  I did not correct these inaccurancies - maybe next time... :)
The instruction sheet contains 9 assembly steps and the painting guide.  Overall it is "easy-to-follow" but it has some confusing diagrams.

I used several home made components in the cockpit (i.e. new seats, belts).  The construction was easy, I used a minimal amount of putty.
I used Tamiya, Testors and Vallejo acrylic paints for finishing the model.  I didn't do lots of weathering.  I used black-green paints around the fuel tanks and black-brown pastel chalks around the exhaust.
Although I have been building models since 1991 that was only my second airbrushed model.  I hope you like it!

Csaba

Photos and text © by Csaba Fodor