Finnish Muutohaukka Dive Bomber

[Brian da Basher]

In 1937, with war clouds threatening, the small but fiercely independent nation of Finland found itself in desperate need of modernizing its air force. The Finns were able to find foreign help in bolstering their fleet of fighters and bombers, but when it came to finding suitable ground-support aircraft, they had to come up with an indigenous design and quickly. Fortunately, the Finns are as innovative as they are fiercely independent, and in short order a native design was found and a prototype built by the firm of Valtion Lentokonetehdas. The prototype was a single inline engined, two place, fixed, spatted undercarriage airplane of great load-carrying capability which was given a twin tail so as to provide the rear gunner with an excellent field of fire for defense. The aircraft was given the designation V.L. 4 as it was the 4th project designed by the Valtion Lentokonetehdas, but it was soon known as the Muutohaukka, or Peregrine Falcon by its pilots and crews. It was heavily armed with two wing mounted 20 mm cannon and a 9 mm gun synchronized to fire through the propellor arc. It also carried one 7.9 mm gun for rear defense and could carry a total of 1000 lbs. of bombs, most often as four 125lb. underwing bombs and one 500lb. centerline bomb. The first production run of Muutohaukkas had just finished equipping ground attack units of the Finnish Air Force when the Winter War with the Soviet Union broke out in late 1939 and the new aircraft was quite the terror to Soviet armor and ground troops, causing severe losses to the Communist foe. On more than one occaision, the out manned and out gunned Finns were saved by vicious dive-bombing attacks from wings of Muutohaukkas. The Muutohaukkas went on to render consdierable service during the later Continuation War and were finally phased out of service in late 1944.

1st of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

Here's my fourth entry in the Airfix GB. This used to be the venerable 1/72 Arado 196 floatplane. I realize it's completely unrecognizible now, but if you look close, you can see what I started with. The engine was made from leftover cowl pieces from a 1/72 Williams' Bros. Douglas World Cruiser and the exhaust stubs are scratched from sprue. The spatted landing gear are really the float pylons from my 1/72 Northrop floatplane. I think the prop is from my Airfix P-40E and the twin-tail is scratchbuilt from leftover biplane wingtips, the rudders coming from the ends of clips used to keep bags of bread closed. The bombs are leftover from my 1/72 Stuka and the rear machine gun is from some nameless W.W. I aircraft. With that big, open rear gun position, I wanted to use the best gun in my spares box, and this drum-fed, liquid cooled Lewis fits the bill. Here's a rear-view shot.

2nd of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

I used Polly-Scale Light Olive Green and Tamiya Dark Green for the uppers and Tamiya Sky for the udersides. The Finnish roundels were made using SEA-style RAAF roundels and spare larger white circle decals. I know the markings aren't exactly accurate, but I thought the Finns might try to curry favor with countries opposed to Nazi Germany by using the roundel instead of the blue swastika, and the roundel is accurate for the time period in terms of the Finnish army. I really like the look of this roundel against the Finnish green camoflage. I tried to paint Finnish crosses on the rudders, but flubbed it and I'm glad I did. I think those rudders look much better in matching camo. Here's a shot of the right side in which you can see the gun that's synchronized to fire through the propellor arc.

3rd of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

This project actually had its genesis a couple of years ago when I swiped the vertical stabilizer off it to replace the horizontal stabs I lost from my 1/72 Lindberg P-47. I was orginally thinking of trying to do something resembling an early Stuka prototype, but I just couldn't figure it out until the Airfix GB came along and I was forced to look at the parts for this kit all over again. I know many were disappointed my last entry didn't have spats, so here's a shot that shows off the spats very nicely.

4th of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

This project took me a bit longer than I'd hoped, the entire build encompassing almost a month. I spent days just trying to sort out a color scheme and markings, when finally my plans to cobble together some Finnish roundels came back to me. I was always curious that there were no noted Finnish ground attack aircraft as surely they of all countries could've made use of some to counter the swarms of Soviet tanks that assaulted them during the Winter War and the Continuation War. Here's a nice shot of the underside that shows off all those menacing bombs.

5th of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[The Rat]

Ya done it again Brian, spats and all!        

[Brian da Basher]

Usually the last pic is the requisite box-shot, but unfortunately, the flimsy open-ended Airfix box has long ago been consigned to a landfill or been recycled into a copy of Tiger Beat . Fortunately, the GB moderator was kind enough to give me a pass on that requirement as the Airfix Arado 196 is so well-known. I'm enjoying this Airfix GB so much I might even be able to squeeze out a fifth entry before the deadline next month. Here's a shot that really shows off the cockpit and canopy, the framing of which was hand-painted like the rest of the model. I feel a little guilty not using the Tamiya tape a certain Mr Howling Mouse was kind enough to send me, but not to fear, Man-Ho, I'm sure that tape will find many uses in the near future!

6th of 6 pics.

Brian da Basher

[Sisko]

Cool man!

Love your work!  

[philp]

Oh, my, God.

[cthulhu77]

Nice conversion and bash!  Love those spats too...

           greg

[K5054NZ]

Cool stuff, Mein Basher. Awesome! At first glance I thought the base kit was a Fairey Battle - very very clever!

[Leigh]

Brian king/queen(whatever takes yer fancy) of the ugly pre war birds
Who hurt you when you were a child Brian? Why are you so disturbed?

Another amazing concept mate, I love your stuff it's so... well...different.
For some reason I'm seeing a  pregnant Fairey Battle.

[BlackOps]

Brian, looks like you've got another winner here

Looks like something from an old photo.



Jeff G.

[John Howling Mouse]

Stuff like yours must just drive the JMN's nuts, Brian: it's always so believable!

Nice "falcon." You sure know how to pick and combine just the right elements, don't you?

I *am* inspired!!!    

And I do believe you're starting to turn me on to spats, of all things.
Now, a T-Tail complete with spats...hmmmm....