PZL P11c...."ugly plane" (?)

[CharlesBronson]

Aircraft camouflage of 1939 campaign
Since 1937 Polish Air Force standardised camouflage schemes on all of its aircraft. There were four basic schemes:
Upper surfaces of wings and elevators and entire fuselage in Khaki. Lower wing and elevator surfaces in Light Blue. The most used scheme.
Upper surfaces camouflaged in three colors: Light Olive, Dark Olive, Khaki. Lower surfaces Sliver or Light Blue for fighter. Color edges feathered or splintered.
Trainer aircraft were painted overall Khaki. Overall Sliver or Overall Ivory White.
Sea aircraft were painted Light Green-Grey on the upper and Silver on the lower surfaces and floats.
Generally all aircraft produced by PZL and LWS carried scheme no. 1. Scheme no. 2 was typical for Lublin R-XIII.

Color Name
Comment Federal Standard
Equivalent Humbrol

Light Khaki
Upper surfaces of fighter and reconnaissance aircraft. Also present in Lublin R-XIII camouflage. In their entirety for training airplanes 30118
Hu:142

Dark Khaki
Upper surfaces of bombers as the PZL 37 "Los" 30097
5pHu:110 + 1pHu:33 + 1pHu:10

Light Olive
Upper camouflage of R-XIII 34151 Hu:151
Dark Green
Upper camouflage of R-XIII 34097
2pHu:80 + 1pHu:116

Ochre
Upper camouflage of R-XIII 33245
Hu:63

Light Blue
Lower surfaces of camouflaged R-XIII 35550
6pHu:34 + 1pHu:25 + 1pHu:89 + 2pHu:64

Light Blue-Grey
Lower surfaces of fighter and bomber 36329
7pHu:87 + 3pHu:34

Sea Grey
Sea aircraft 34410
6pHu:90 + 5pHu:34 + 1pHu:76 + 1pHu:64

Silver
Lower surfaces of reconnaissance aircraft (even some R-XIII) and cockpit interiors. 17178
Hu:191

 

[Brunner]

no, the lancaster has character, that's just crap............

Mabye not an ultra modern plane for 1939 but it was extremely manouverable. Many LW pilots were stunned seing P11 turning almost in place.

Yes, she was slow, badly armed, but she had the character. The pilots loved P11 for the reliability and unfailingness she gave to them. It enabled the future aces to get their wings.

It should be remembered, that on base of P11, there were developed such a/c as P24, whic hserved well e.g. in Bulgaria, Turkey and in Greece. Greek pilots used them successfuly during the struggle with Reggia Aeronautica.
And on base of the airframe of p24, the IAR 80/81 was developed.

In Il2 Sturmovik/FB P11 behaves unrealisticly. It is not as manouverable as it was in reality. In the game it loses the u/c while diving at 550/600km/h. In fact P11's construction allowed to achieve greater speed in diving.

And above all, those superb gull wings, eng. Puławski's invention.
They gave the plane its extreme agility and superb visibility form the open cockpit.

 

[pokoros]

I fell in love in this plane when I was 16 years old. It is a beautiful aircraft guys.

 

[A4K]

Great info CharlesBronson and Brunner, thanks! I got a PZL 7 and PZL 11c from Wojtek (Wurger) which I'll be making soon, so it will come in handy!

 

[Njaco]

It was from the guns of a PZL 11 that the Luftwaffe suffered its first loss of the war when 2d/Lt Wladyslaw Gnys shot down not one but two Do 17Zs of KG 77 on 1 Sept. 1939 near Zurada.

 

[v2]

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/stories/first-air-victory-wwii-648.html

 

[Njaco]

Thanks V2!

 

[Lucky13]

I love the PZL P11.C AND the Lancaster both look great to me! 8)

 

[bigZ]

PZL 11 looks great. But why didn't the Poles also employ the PZL 24? 168 produced 25mph faster plus 2 additional cannon and 335hp extra. Operated by Bulgaria, Greece, Rmania and Turkey.

 

[Lucky13]

That was an export version if my memory serves me right....

 

[bigZ]

That was an export version if my memory serves me right....

Yes it is. But from the limited stats I have, apart from range its seems the better plane.

 

[Lucky13]

Yup....I'm sure that Wojtek and our other Polish colleagues has the answer....

 

[Venganza]

For what it's worth, I think the P.11 was a cool looking plane. Something about the gull wings gave it a certain gracefulness. Although obsolete by WWII, it was state of the art when in first flew in 1931.

 

[marshall]

PZL 11 looks great. But why didn't the Poles also employ the PZL 24? 168 produced 25mph faster plus 2 additional cannon and 335hp extra. Operated by Bulgaria, Greece, Rmania and Turkey.

PZL P.24 was an export version developed from P.11. Polish Air Force knew that P.11 is outdated and instead buying P.24s they were waiting for PZL.50 but due to delays PZL.50 could not be in time, and then they tried to make P.11g, an updated version of P.11 but only one prototype flew before war. Also when PAF knew that there will be no PZL.50s before war, they orderd some P.24s but none was build before war.

 

[tatradog13]

When the PZL P-11 was introduced, it was actually ahead of it's time. Most of the major air forces of the world were still flying bi-planes as their front-line fighters. The P-11 out-performed and out-classed them.

Not bad for a country that disappeared from the map for more than a hundred years and wasn't reformed again until 1919 by the Versailles Treaty. Unfortunately, Poland's fledgling economy couldn't keep up with the next step in fighter technology - the low-wing monoplane. However, they did develop and produce a modern twin-engine medium bomber - the PZL P-37.

 

[spit5]

PZL P.50 Jastrzab - fighter

 

[Messy1]

I can't say that I think it's ugly, but it definitely is not one of my favorites. It is not a bad looking plane I do not think.

 

[Wurger]

Good find Spit5.

Unfortunately there is a mistake in some post here.
The one is that the P-24 wasn't the P-11 development.The fighter plane design was started almost simultaneously with P-11 and was a study for using French engines of much more power than the English Mercury engines used for P-series powering.Of course some of P-11 parts were used for the design but these had to be adjusted to the engine of 700-1100Hp.The project could appear because of French interests in Z.Puławski's aircraft.Unfortunately Puławski was killed in an air accident in 1931 and the project had to be finished by W.J.Jakimiuk.

The bigZ's question "But why didn't the Poles also employ the PZL 24? "
The answer is quite easy.The plane was almost like P-11 and was still corrected in that time.And what makes the matter worse there were huge problems with supplies of French engines in early 30' to Poland and France didn't want to sell Poland a licence for their engines.What is more Polish industry didn't produce engines of a such powerty.It was a mistake because after 1936 there weren't any problems with the delivery of these engines.
When P-24 was exhibited in Paris in 1934 where attracted foreign Air Forces.Because almost all outlet in the Western Europe was dominated by France and Great Britain, Poland had to find other countries for the plane negotiation.France and GB weren't involved into market in Balkan region so Poland came forward with the offer for these Balkan countries.It gave Polish industry a chance to earn some money and start a new project of a much more modern fighter called P-50 Hawk.

 

[109ROAMING]

Good info Wojtek!

 

[Njaco]

Nice info, Wurger!