That's all for this month for our aircraft, we sincerely hope you enjoy the pictures and would love to hear from you if any of these magnificent models appeal to you. They are all now on our website www.tomgunn.co.uk and can be paid for upfront or over an extended monthly period. All Gunn Club members qualify for a 10% discount on the website listed price, joining is free so well worth registering.
Nord Noratlas
The Noratlas was built by the French aircraft manufacturer Nord post WW2, following a requirement by the French air force for a replacement of their C-47 Dakota aircraft and Junkers 52 transports that were now nearing the end of their operational careers. Following its adoption by the Armée de l’Air, a number of other operators in Europe and Africa chose to procure the Noratlas for their own military air services. Finding itself in a similar situation to France, the Luftwaffe also purchased 187 aircraft for transport and parachute operations and became one of Nord’s biggest customers. Other Air Forces soon followed suit including Israel, Greece and Portugal. Israel was another primary combat user of the Noratlas where its role in cargo transport, parachute drops and more covert operations was greatly appreciated.
Our 1/32 scale hand carved Mahogany model WOW237 comes in the markings of the Israeli Air Force and is limited to 5 in number worldwide. The excellent K&C figure shown is for size comparison purposes only and is not included, although we will be making some of our own Israeli Paras to go with this aircraft in the near future. The regular price for this model is $1600 plus $250 shipping, UK/EU customers please refer to website for shipping costs.
The dimensions for this product are approximately 66 cm in length and 102 cm wingspan.
The A-26 was Douglas Aircraft's successor to the Boston Havoc, also known as the Douglas Boston, one of the most successful and widely operated types flown by Allied air forces in World War II.
The A-26 was originally built in two different configurations. The A-26B had a gun nose, which originally could be equipped with a combination of armament including .50 caliber machine guns, 20mm or 37mm auto cannon, or even a 75mm pack howitzer (which was never used operationally). Normally the gun nose version housed six (or later eight) 50 calibre machine guns, officially termed the "all-purpose nose", later commonly known as the "six-gun nose" or "eight-gun nose". The A-26C's "glass" nose, officially termed the "Bombardier nose", contained a Norden bombsight for medium altitude precision bombing. The A-26C nose section included two fixed M-2 guns, later replaced by underwing gun packs or internal guns in the wings.
A-26s began arriving in Europe in late September 1944 for assignment to the 9th Air Force. The initial deployment involved 18 aircraft and crews assigned to the 553d Squadron of the 386th Bomb Group. This unit flew its first mission on 6 September 1944. No aircraft were lost on the eight test missions, and the 9th Air Force announced that it was happy to replace all of its A-20s and B-26's with the A-26 Invader.
the A-26 was well received by pilots and crew alike, and by 1945, the 9th AF had flown 11,567 missions, dropping 18,054 tons of bombs, recording seven confirmed kills while losing 67 of It's A-26 aircraft.
Post-war the A-26 served in the Korean, Vietnamese, Angolan and Indonesian conflicts.
Size wise the A-26 is almost identical in length and width to our B-25 Mitchell.
Our 1/32 scale all silver A-26 'For Pete's Sake' comes with free pilot figure USA013, is a limited edition of 5 models and is priced at $1300 plus postage.
WOW223; We also have a winter version flown by Aleksander Baturin in a striking white with green mottled paint scheme. Once again comes with free aircraft mat as per the pictures, limited to 5 in number worldwide and priced at $399 plus postage.
The Polikarpov I-15 was a Soviet biplane fighter aircraft of the 1930s. Nicknamed Chaika (Russian: Seagull) because of its gulled upper wings, it was operated in large numbers by the Soviet Air Force, and together with the Polikarpov I-16 monoplane, was one of the standard fighters of the Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, where it was called Chato (snub-nose). Over 1000 I-15’s were still in service when Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941.
The design for the fighter started as an advanced monoplane under the direction of Andrei Tupolev. He grew concerned that the design would not mature, and ordered two backup biplane designs as the I-14A and B just to be safe. Polikarpov had just been released from prison in August 1932, and was handed the I-14A/I-15 project.
The first flight was made in October 1933 with V.P. Chkalov at the controls, powered by an imported Wright R-1820 Cyclone engine. The I-15, also known by its development name TsKB-3, was a small biplane fighter with a gulled upper wing. The single bay wings were of wooden construction, while the fuselage was of mixed steel and duralumin construction, with a fabric covered rear fuselage.
Production started in 1934, initially being powered by the Shvetsov M-22, a license-built version of the Bristol Jupiter radial engine. While less powerful than the Cyclone, the M-22 powered aircraft were still superior to the I-5 which it replaced, demonstrating excellent manoeuvrability. Production switched to the 515 kW (700 hp) Shvetsov M-25 engine (a license-built, metricated Cyclone) in late 1936. A total of 671 I-15s were built, 284 in the Soviet Union and a further 287 under license by CASA in Spain.[6] The gulled upper wing of the I-15 was unpopular with some pilots, as it was felt to restrict visibility, so Polikarpov's design bureau produced a revised version, again powered by the M-25, with a longer span un-gulled upper wing. This version, the I-15bis, commenced production in 1937, a total of 2,408 I-15bis' being delivered by the time production finished in 1940.
The I-15 was used by several air forces throughout the world including China, Mongolia and Finland.
Our 1/30 scale version WOW224 is one flown by Lt Aleksander Baturin, a Russian Ace with over 18 kills to his name. Limited to 5 in number worldwide and priced at $399 plus $100 postage, comes with free aircraft mat as per attached pictures.
Dear all welcome to our April 2019 Aircraft newsletter featuring some exciting new products. All our hand carved Mahogany aircraft take in the region of 60 hours to manufacture plus many hours of drying time. Some of the aircraft you see in our newsletters can take 3 years from start of project to completion! For this reason we only make small numbers of each model and every aircraft is a unique piece. For those of you who wish to spread your budget, please note we do accept stage payments where you can spread the cost over several months. If you require further details of any of the aircraft in todays newsletter please email us on welcome@gunnclub.co.uk.
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