Polikarpow UTI-4
Opmerkingen
Album info
About the aircraft:
The Polikarpov UTI-4 was a two-seater training variant of the famous Polikarpov I-16 fighter. It was designed to prepare pilots for the transition to one of the most advanced fighter designs of the second half of the 1930s. Whilst retaining most of the flight characteristics of the combat-ready I-16, it allowed for training with an instructor seated in the rear cockpit. Series production began in 1938. During the war, they were mainly used for training new pilots. Depending on the source, between approximately 1,600 and over 3,100 examples of this version were built.
About this aircraft:
After the end of the Second World War, a few UTI-4s also found their way into the resurgent military air force in Poland. Two aircraft are known to have been handed over in the autumn of 1945 – one served with the 1st Mixed Training and School Aviation Regiment, whilst the other was assigned to the Technical Aviation School in Zamość. The model was created based on photographs from newsreel footage of a parade in Warsaw in September 1945.
About the model:
I have only come across one model of this aircraft in Polish colours online – it depicted the aircraft from the Technical Aviation School. That one was probably painted light grey. Analysing a frame from the newsreel, I compared the appearance of the chequerboard markings and the fuselage around them with my previously built UT-2 and UT-2M models. On this basis, I decided that the model from the parade was painted in the olive-blue scheme typical of that period.
As for the model itself, I replaced the front section of the fuselage with my own (with the air intake louvers for cooling the engine cylinders slightly ajar), used tubing to make the exhausts, added imitation leather trim to the cockpits and, the biggest challenge of all, made the template jig and vacuumed my own fairings. I had to do this because the Amodel kit only includes late-production fairings, whereas the parade photos show an aircraft with early-production fairings. The rest is practically 'straight out of the box' 🙂
Do take a look at the gallery, which features a bit of a novelty for my galleries (but that's at the end 🙂 )
