PZL P.37A Łoś

Another replacement for a kit built when I was 15 or so. That was the then-new 1/72 kit from ZTS Plastyk in Poland, which could be built as an A or B. I decided to do an A. I seem to remember it being a pretty decent kit for the time, and I had a good mix for the khaki color courtesy of the pen pal who sent me it, so I was very pleased with the result, which sat alongside the Heller Karas and a P.11c made by…You know, I can’t remember. Building Polish, Czech and Soviet types was my thing at the time. I had an easier time than my friend Chas, who’d specialized on obscure RAF types - the kits I was building may not have been state-of-the-art, but he was building Gloster Gauntlets from *very* limited run conversions, and Avro Yorks from vac-form conversions for the ancient Airfix Lancaster.. Then again, I did get to build a vac form Yak-17 that had no manufacturer name.

However, at the end of the day, I have to say he was a better modeler than me. Since I got out of modeling in 1984, I’ve no idea what he went on to build. Sorta ironic that while I can revisit my kits from then in a larger scale and with loads of aftermarket, he’d find doing a York or Gauntlet almost as much a tough build as then. Then again, look at the Czech or Polish model industries now vs 1982, and then look at what was available then in the UK (Airfix, Heller, Matchbox, Esci, lots of vac forms, and a decent cottage industry) vs now - Airfix the only one actively making new kits, and almost all of the small companies gone.