Breda Ba 65 of the 8th Squadron Royal Bulgarian A.F.

[NARSES2]

This was origionaly due to be a Hungarian aircraft but unfortunately I would need to hand paint the national markings (memo to self – check before applying camouflage in future) and therefore after poking around in the transfers boxes and discovering some Royal Bulgarian markings she has ended up in that service.

So the basic scenario is that the Italian's gifted 12 aircraft to the Bulgarians as a thank you for  help provided to Italy when the Italian's invaded Greece in October 1940.

It's the AZ kit, which is a product of what I would call their "middle period" and is firmly of the limited run family. It goes together reasonably well, with the exception of the canopy which is a pig. Now I am not usually that bad with vacform's and can generally get it right first time, but this one !  The canopy frame lines were virtually indistinguishable and I not only needed the second copy provided, but I had to cobble a single whole from the two provided. Still we got there in the end. Paints are Xtracrylic pre-War/early War RLM colours and the national markings come from a Blue Rider sheet. At the end of the day I still enjoyed it, although I'll be leaving my second copy on the shelves for a while. And yes I will be buying the version with the turret when it comes out.

[Old Wombat]

Good job, Chris, which looks "right" in those Bulgarian markings!

[zenrat]

Looks good Chris.

[PR19_Kit]

That looks a brute of an aeroplane Chris, what did it do, militarily I mean?

It doesn't look fast enough for a fighter, but it has no stores points that I can see. Maybe a PR aircraft with those ports under the fuselage?

[TallEng]

nice
reminds me of the Gloster F5/34, although I assume its a bit bigger than that?

Regards
Keith

[Scotaidh]

That looks a brute of an aeroplane Chris, what did it do, militarily I mean?

It doesn't look fast enough for a fighter, but it has no stores points that I can see. Maybe a PR aircraft with those ports under the fuselage?

Wikipedia says it was a ground-attack aircraft with an internal bomb-bay ...

[TomZ]

Looks good Chris!

TomZ

[NARSES2]

That looks a brute of an aeroplane Chris, what did it do, militarily I mean?

It doesn't look fast enough for a fighter, but it has no stores points that I can see. Maybe a PR aircraft with those ports under the fuselage?

Wikipedia says it was a ground-attack aircraft with an internal bomb-bay ...

Yup it was designed and built specifically as an assault and ground support aircraft. Used in Africa, Abyssinia and Libya.

but it has no stores points that I can see. Maybe a PR aircraft with those ports under the fuselage?

That's where the A.P. bombs were dropped through.

nice
reminds me of the Gloster F5/34, although I assume its a bit bigger than that?

Regards
Keith

Very much so Keith. It reminded me of the same design, but scaled up. There was also a version with a turret used by the Iraqi air force. For the time it was designed it was fairly advanced, but technology was improving by leaps and bounds.

[chrisonord]

Very nice Chris 
Chris

[TheChronicOne]

Man, this thing is cool!!!  great work... never seen them roundels before and the plane... well, it's also unfamiliar. New stuff all around for me!! I'm going to buy one. Kind of like a weird Italian Seafury or something. 

[NARSES2]

. never seen them roundels before and the plane... well, it's also unfamiliar.

The Royal Bulgarian AF only used them for a few years, 1938 until they joined the War on the Eastern Front in December 1941, on a surprisingly diverse collection of aircraft. If an aircraft had been presented by the King, and there were a fair few, they also carried the Royal Cypher, but very few other markings.

Central and Eastern Europe between 1918 and 1941 is a fertile field for our style of modelling 

[kitbasher]

Dunno how I missed this when it was first posted up, but that's really pretty, Chris.  Well done.

[NARSES2]

Cheers Dave