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".
Click on
images below to see larger images
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
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