History and aircraft registration
Monoplane, single seated, twin
engines (Gnome-Rhone 14 Mars, 850 hp each), bringing the duck muzzle, allowing a
perfect vision, this device is a great technical achievement for those times,
being the precursor of much later designed and most famous, A-10 and
Su-25. The
particular performance gave the pilot the ability to fight as a
hunter, after releasing bombs, managing to achieve almost all types of aerian
acrobatics. Armored under engine
and also armor-plated Cupra, the windscreen also shell-proof (75 mm) can
withstand explosions of 20mm projectiles. Maximum speed was 375 km / h and by
coupling –fortajului-? engines were brought up to 110% (the famous "leistung"-over-burst
,moment who began to smoke so intense, leaving the impression that the enemy hit it) it also reached speeds up to 425 km / h and 600l of fuel loaded in
the three tanks, gave him a flight autonomy of 700 km to a maximum of 7000m
(about 1 ˝ hours flight). Strong-armed, six bomb launchers, of 50-75 kg
each or a single 250 kg bomb with delayed explosion by 14 seconds in
200m. As aircraft weapons, it has two machine guns 7.92 or 13.6 mm with 500
cartridges (the fifth cartridge was always the tracer, and the rest of cart,
each
one and repeated: fighting, perforating, perforating-explosive and mine)
and two Rheinmetall 20mm guns with 250 projectiles.
Apart from the
Luftwaffe, the Royal Romanian Air Force was the only aircraft of the Second
World War equipped with Henschel 129. The Royal Romanian Air Force had a
total of over 200 Henschel 129 Late Model B2 variant with short exhaust. The
first five aircraft were brought in Romania on June 12, 1943, and the
first combat mission takes place on the Eastern front, on 15 August 1943 against
the village Kotovka, with a total of 12 airplanes.
The
8th Assault Group consisted of three Fighter Squadron 41st.
42nd and 60th Assault of which at one time have remained only two, and then on
the Western front only one squadron from 8th Group Assault-Dive Bomber.
41st Squadron Aircraft was registered starting number 100 and –propellers
spinners painted red, 42nd Squadron were numbered with numbers
starting with 200 and had yellow propeller spinners and 60th Squadron
digit numbers starting with 300 and propellers spinners were blue. Aircraft
that had the registration ending of "a", were replacing those
destroyed, registration ending arriving in some cases at "c".
Click on
images below to see larger images
About Kit
When I first
saw the site from <LSP> section "Modell of the Year 2008 - Full resin
kit", I whispered myself" it should stay in my showcase". Course this
thing happened and I can brag on this occasion that what you see now is an
absolute world first and since I did not see another model built anywhere in
this scale.
Kit: Henschel 129b 1 / 32 full
resin from Jerry Rutman
Registration:
Romanian Royal Air Force ,Group 8 Assault, Fighter Squadron 41, 1944,
W.N.141122, Lt.Av.Rez pilot. Antonescu Vasile.
Decal: Home Made
Update: 1 / 32 Bomb Set from
Eduard
Upgrade: Support ventral bomb,
bomb wing supports, ladder, mirror.
I
chose this registration because when I look Hs 129b references I found on the
back cover of "Squadron Signal: Henschel 129: In Action" like this plane
at some point in its existence, was in my hometown (Arad ) "was repaired
<after being hit by AA in Rosnov> and was used as training aircraft in
Arad airbase, was believed to have been destroyed during fighting between
Romanian and Hungarian forces in and around Arad in September 1944. Registration
"118a" is the personal emblem of Lt.Av.Rez.Antonescu Vasile a
winged bottle of red wine.
Unfortunately I found only one
color profile (at the back cover of "Signal Squadron") and one photo in
the same book, which shows the right rear of the aircraft, enough to clarify the
existence of personal logo on the left side only.
A full model, made of resin,
quite good existing only at this scale, not pretentious, which I tried to manage
out, as well as I could, a pattern quite nice (I'm happy with what came out).
Unfortunately I made no photos
during construction, because when I concluded a stage, I was looking forward
to get to the next step without thinking about it and capture the moment, so
you'll have to settle with what is seen. The construction took about three
months, during which I encountered enough problems as it is the first model full
account of resin that I do and that is a fairly large scale (or small) 1/32.
I haven’t used the 30mm cannon
on the model because Royal Romanian Air Force did not used that version of
armament. I tried to shape (and I hope I did, you will decide that) the ventral
bomb racks and those on planes, ladder and mirror, which were not included in
the model.
Painting was made with paint
Gunze, RLM 02,04,65,66,70,71 (which seemed too light to the reality and it
was darken whit a little black and a bit of RLM 70) and Tamiya Smoke.
I am not the best modeller in the
world, but for now I’m the first that made this airplane model at scale
1/32. If something came out of this and you love my work, I will let you decide.
Florin Silaghi
Click on
images below to see larger images
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