Avia B.135 White 5
Dolna Mitropoliya Advanced Fighter School 1944

RSModels 1:72 Avia B.135 completed as White 5 flown by poruchik (Lieutenant) Yordan Ferdinandov at the Advanced Fighter Pilot School of the Royal Bulgarian Air Force, Dolna Mitropoliya airfield, 1944.

1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The B.135 was the most advanced fighter designed in Czechoslovakia before it was occupied in 1938. It was a mixed construction plane powered by the French liquid cooled Hispano-Suiza 12Ycrs V12 engine of 860 hp, armed with a 20mm MG-FF engine mounted cannon firing through the propeller hub and 2x synchonized CZ z.30 7.9mm machine guns in the nose. In 1940, a Bulgarian committee visited the Avia factory to select aircraft for procurement and was impresed with the design. It was supposed to be produced under license at the Държавна Авиоремоентна Работилница ДАР (State Aircraft Workshop DAR) with the engines and armament delivered from occupied France and Czechoslovakia. A batch of 12 planes was produced in kit form in Avia to assembled in Bulgaria in preparation for the license agreement.

Contrary to information circulating in the Web, the DAR factory was more than capable of producing the airframes, however the Germans never supplied the promised Hispano-Suiza engines or MG-FF cannons, leaving only the initial 12 pleanes that supplied in kit form from Avia that were delivered only in 1942. Not only were these armed with only a pair of 7.9mm machine guns but the airframes were seemingly sabotaged, the aluminium skin treated with acid and heavily corroded. Despite restoration efforts, the weakened construction couldn't sustain high G-loads. It was deemed that the B.135s weren't suitable for combat operation given the (by 1942) weak engine, minimal armament and weak airframes, and they were relegated to the Advanced Fighter Pilot School of the Royal Bulgarian Air Force in Dolna Mitropoliya airfield. Even there, they were flown only by the experienced instructors.

2. THE SOLE COMBAT

The Avia B.135 is somewhat of a legandary plane in Bulgarian history despite its single operational use. On March 30th, 1944 the 15th USAAF was conducting its largest bombing raid against the Bulgarian capital Sofia so far, with more than 350 bombers in three waves. All previous raids were carried out in two waves and the third wasn't detected by German Freya radar stations on time, so after the second wave passed over the city, the embattled 2/6 and 3/6 orlyaks landed at their operation airfields, while AA units stood down. This was when the third wave flew in unopposed.

Given the critical condition over the capital, the CO of the Fighter School kapitan (Captain) Krastio Atanasov ordered the flight instructors to take four B.135s that were kept on alert, take off and engage the enemy. The flight was lead by Atanasov himself, with poruchik (Lieutenant) Yordan Ferdinandov as his wingman, the second pair lead by podporuchik (Junior Lieutenant) Petar Manolev with feldwebel (Master Sergeant) Nedko Kolev as wingman. The flight of four Avia B.135s advanced trainers chased the formation of about 130 USAAF bombers leaving Sofia to the Southwest, attacking several groups. After several attacks and the second pair leaving combat due to low fuel and exhausted ammo supply, kapitan Atanasov and poruchik Ferdinandov conducted one last attack run and almost certainly downed a B-24 Liberator. They managed to land with seizing engines due to lack of fuel at the base of 3/6 orlyak at Bozhurishte airfield near Sofia.

3. THE KIT

This is the original 2007 boxing of the then-new tooling. Seemingly typical of other RSModels kits I have seen, it has fine engraved panel lines, it is generally very accurate but it is difficult to assemble. It came with a PE set for the cockpit and radiator grills. Unfortunately, the canopy on the Avia B.135 is quite small, framed and while the part is transparent, is it also quite thick - the end result being that unless you order a vacuum formed canopy and open it up (including the cockpit side-door similar to the one on the Spitfire) much of the work detailing the cockpit is wasted as one can't see much inside.

The greatest omission is the missing oil tank bulge inside the chin air intake for the oil cooler - on the kit it's a straight tunnel with a PE grill. I scratchbuilt the oil tank from pieces of plastic sprue. The aerial antenna mast was replaced with a reshaped steel pin, while the pitot tube with a 0.1mm brass tube. I also drilled open the wing air scoop and the exhausts.

Painted using Mr. Hobby acrylics. I used the color profile in MPM's "Bulgarian Fighter Colours 1919 - 1948, Vol. II" by Denes Bernad that lists the underside as RLM65 Light Blue with RLM71 Dark Green fuselage surfaces and RLM71/RLM70 Black Green on the wings. However, based on both the (excellent quality) photos in the book, I believe that the fuselage was also painted in two tones RLM70/RLM71, so I went with that. The RLM70 was likely sprayed over the corroded surfaces and its far glossier on photos, so I intentionally polished those areas and covered them with semi-gloss varnish rather than the usual matt coat I used for the rest of the plane.

The national tricolor on the rudder was painted with the teal tinted green being my own mix. I used the kit supplied decals, which went on and settled down very easily.

The biggest problem were the main undercarriage legs. Not only are they overly long (by about 1,5mm) but they don't have attachment pins and wouldn't squeeze into the wing niches, so I had to carefully cut, file and position them for glueing after everything was painted. Alas, they don't quite sit as well as I wanted.

Weathered with two tone brownish oil washes for the upper and grey wash for lower surfaces, and oil paints after the matt coat. I left the undercarriage wheels mostly clean as the best photo of White 5 shows it after a rainfall. I also didn't add much exhaust stains, as the planes did not fly much throughout their operation life.