+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!
Some Background:
Antanas Gustaitis (March 26, 1898 – October 16, 1941) was an officer in the Lithuanian Armed Forces who modernized the Lithuanian Air Force, which at that time was part of the Lithuanian Army. He was the architect or aeronautical engineer who undertook the task to design and construct several military aircraft before WWII broke out.
Gustaitis was born in the village of Obelinė, in Javaravas county, in the Marijampolė district. He attended high school in Yaroslavl, and from there studied at the Institute of Engineering and School of Artillery in Petrograd. After joining the Lithuanian Army in 1919, he graduated from the School of Military Aviation as a Junior Lieutenant in 1920. Later that year, he saw action in the Polish-Lithuanian War. By 1922 he began to train pilots, and later became the head of the training squadron. He also oversaw the construction of aircraft for Lithuania in Italy and Czechoslovakia. Gustaitis was one of the founding members of the Aero Club of Lithuania, and later its Vice-President. He did much to promote aviation among the young people in Lithuania, especially concerning the sport of gliding. He also won the Lithuanian Chess Championship in 1922.
Between 1925 and 1928, Gustaitis studied aeronautical engineering in Paris. After his graduation he returned to Lithuania and was promoted to deputy Commander-in-Chief of Military Aviation and made chief of the Aviation Workshop (Karo Aviacijos Tiekimo Skyrius) in Kaunas. During this time, he reorganized the workshop and expanded its capability to repair aircraft as well. The aircraft he designed were named ANBO, an acronym for "Antanas Nori Būti Ore", which literally means “Antanas wants to be in the air” in Lithuanian.
Between 1925 and 1939, the ANBO design bureau developed, built and flew several trainers, reconnaissance and even fighter aircraft for the Lithuanian air force. The last projects, the ANBO VIII, a light single-engine reconnaissance bomber, and the ANBO IX, a single-seat fighter, were the most ambitious.
The ANBO IX started in 1935 as a light low-wing design with spatted, fixed landing gear and an open cockpit, powered by a British Bristol Mercury 830 hp (619 kW) 9-cylinder radial engine – a very clean all-metal design, outwardly not unlike the contemporary Japanese Nakajima Ki-27 or the Dutch Fokker D.XXI, but a much more modern construction.
A first prototype had been completed in summer 1936 and it flew for the first time on 1st of August, with good flight characteristics, but Gustaitis was not satisfied with the aircraft anymore. More powerful and aerodynamically more efficient engines had become available, and a retractable landing gear would improve the performance of the ANBO IX even more, so that the aircraft was heavily modified during the rest of the year.
The large Mercury was replaced with a Pratt & Whitney R-1535 Twin Wasp Junior, a two-row 14-cylinder radial engine with 825 hp and a much smaller frontal area that allowed the ANBO IX’s cowling to be wrapped much tighter around the engine than the Mercury’s former Townend ring, leading to a very aerodynamic overall shape. The oil cooler, formerly mounted starboard flank in front of the cockpit, was moved into a mutual fairing with the carburetor intake under the fuselage behind the engine.
The wings had to be modified to accommodate a retractable main landing gear: to make space for suitable wells, the inner wing section in front of the main spar was deepened, resulting in a kinked leading edge of the wing. The landing gear retracted inwards and was initially completely covered. The tail remained fixed, though, even though the former simple tailskid was replaced with a pressurized rubber wheel for better handling on paved runways.
These measures alone improved the ANBO IX’s top speed by 25 mph (40 km/h), and to improve the pilot’s working conditions the originally open cockpit with just a windscreen and a small headrest fairing was covered with a fully closed clear canopy and an enlarged aerodynamic spinal fairing that ended at the fin’s base. This additional space was used to introduce another contemporary novel feature on board: a radio set.
Together with some other refinements on a second prototype (e. g. a smaller diameter of the front fuselage section, an even more streamlined cowling that now also covered two synchronized machine guns above the engine and a recontoured wing/fuselage intersection), which flew in September 1937, top speed rose by another 6 mph (10 km/h) from 460 km/h (285 mph) of the original aircraft to a competitive 510 km/h (317 mph) that put the ANBO IX on a par with many other contemporary European fighter aircraft.
In this form the ANBO IX was cleared for production in early 1938, even though the desired R-1535 Twin Wasp Junior was not cleared for export or license production. With the Manfréd Weiss WM K.14 engine from Hungary, a derivative of the French Gnôme-Rhône 14 K with 900 hp, a similar, even slightly more powerful replacement could be quickly found, even though the adaptation of the airframe to the different powerplant delayed production by four months. Beyond a new engine mount, the machine guns in the fuselage and its synchronization gearbox had to be deleted, but the weapons could be moved into the outer wings, so that a total of four machine guns as main armament was retained. Additionally, a single ventral hardpoint was added that could either carry a single bomb with its respective shackles or – more frequently – a drop tank that extended the fighter’s rather limited range.
The Lithuanian air force ordered fifty of these machines, primarily to replace its Fiat CR.20 biplane fighters, and several regional export customers like Finland, Estonia and Bulgaria showed interest in the modern ANBO IX, too. Due to the complex all-metal airframe and limited workshop capacities, however, production started only slowly.
The first batch of six ANBO IXs arrived at Lithuanian frontline units in November 1939, more were in the ANBO workshops in Kaunas at that time in various stages of assembly. In 1940, the Lithuanian Air Force consisted of eight Air Squadrons, including reconnaissance, fighter, bomber and training units. However, only the 5th fighter squadron had by the time enough ANBO IXs and trained pilots to be fully operational with the new type. Air Force bases had been established in the cities and towns of Kaunas/Žagariškės, Šiauliai /Zokniai (Zokniai airfield), Panevėžys /Pajuostis. In the summertime, airports in the cities of Palanga and Rukla were also used. A total of 117 aircraft and 230 pilots and observers were listed in the books at that time, but less than ten of them were modern ANBO IX fighters, and probably only half of them were actually operational.
Following the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, however, the Lithuanian Air Force was formally disbanded on October 23, 1940. Part of Lithuanian Air Force (77 senior officers, 72 junior officers, 59 privates, 20 aircraft) was reorganized into Red Army's 29th Territorial Rifle Corps Aviation, also referred to as National Squadron (Tautinė eskadrilė). Other planes and equipment were taken over by Red Army's Air Force Bases No. 13 and 213. About third of Tautinė eskadrilė's personnel latter suffered repressions by Soviet authorities, significant share joined June uprising, after the start of German invasion into Soviet Union several pilots of Tautinė eskadrilė and fewer than six planes withdrew with the Soviet army.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 7.71 m (25 ft 2¾ in)
Wingspan: 10.22 m (33 ft 5¾ in)
Wing area: 16 m2 (170 sq ft)
Height: 2.62 m (8 ft 7 in)
Empty weight: 2,070 kg (4,564 lb)
Gross weight: 2,520 kg (5,556 lb)
Powerplant:
1× Manfred Weiss WM K.14 (Gnome-Rhône 14Kfrs Mistral-Major) 14-cyinder air-cooled radial
piston engine with 647 kW (900 hp), driving a 3-bladed constant-speed metal propeller
Performance:
Maximum speed: 510 km/h (320 mph, 280 kn)
Minimum control speed: 113 km/h (70 mph, 61 kn)
Range: 730 km (450 mi, 390 nmi) on internal fuel
1.000 km (621 mi, 543 nmi) with 300 l drop tank
Service ceiling: 10.000 m (33,000 ft)
Time to altitude: 4'41" to 5,000 meters
Wing loading: 157,5 kg/m² (32.7 lb/sq ft)
Power/mass: 3.89 kg/kW (6.17 lb/hp)
Take-off run to 8 m (26 ft): 270 m (886 ft)
Landing run from 8 m (26 ft): 340 m (1,115 ft)
Armament:
4x 7.7 mm (0.303 in) fixed forward-firing M1919 Browning machine guns with 500 rpg
in the outer wings
1x ventral hardpoint for a single 250 kg (550 lb) bomb or a 300 l (66 imp gal) drop tank
The kit and its assembly:
This small aircraft model is the result of a spontaneous kitbashing flash, when I dug through the sprue piles and the spares box. It started with a leftover fuselage from a Mistercraft PZL P-7 fighter, and further searches revealed the wings from a PM Model Fokker D.XXI and the sawn-off wings from a Hobby Boss MS.406. The sprue stash came up with other useful parts like small stabilizers and a landing gear – and it turned out to be the rest of the MS.406, which had originally been butchered to be mated with the P-7 wings to become my fictional Polish RWD-24 fighter prototype. So, as a serious recycling project, I decided to accept the challenge and use the remains of the P-7 and the MS.406 to create a “counterpart” to the RWD-24, and it became the fictional ANBO IX.
While the ingredients for a basic airframe were now available, some parts were still missing. Most important: an engine. One option was an early Merlin, left over from a Spitfire, but due to the circular P-7 fuselage I preferred a radial engine. With the cowling from a Japanese Mitsubishi Ha-102 two-row radial (from an Airfix Ki-46 “Dinah”) I found a suitable and very streamlined donor, which received a small three-blade propeller with a scratched spinner on a metal axis inside.
The cockpit and the canopy caused more headaches, because the P-7 has an open cockpit with a rather wide opening. For a fighter with a retractable landing gear this would hardly work anymore and finding a solution as well as a suitable donor piece took a while. I initially wanted to use a kind of bubble canopy (with struts, so that it would not look too modern), but eventually rejected this because the proportions would have looked odd – and the overall style would have been too modern.
So I switched to an early Spitfire canopy, which had a good size for the small aircraft, even though it called for a spinal fairing – the latter became the half from a drop tank (IIRC from an Airfix P-61?).
Lots of PSR was necessary everywhere to blend the disparate parts together. The cockpit opening had to be partly filled and reshaped, blending both canopy and spine into the hull took several layers.
The area in front of the cockpit (originally holding the P-7’s shoulder-mounted wings) had to be re-sculpted and blended into the Ki-46 cowling.
The ventral area between the wings had also to be fully sculpted with putty, and huge gaps along the wing roots on the wings’ upper surfaces had to be filled and formed, too. No wonder that many surface details disappeared along the way… Nevertheless, the effort was worthwhile, because the resulting airframe, esp. the sleek fuselage, looks very aerodynamic, almost like a Thirties air speed record contender?
Painting and markings:
This is where the real trouble came to play. It took a while to find a suitable/authentic paint scheme for a pre-WWII Lithuanian aircraft, and I took inspiration from mid-Thirties Letov S.20 biplane fighters and the real ANBO VIII light bomber prototype. Apparently, a two-tone camouflage in two shades of green were an option, even though the tones appear debatable. The only real-life reference was a b/w picture of an S.20, and it showed a good contrast between the greens, so that my first choice were Humbrol 120 (FS 34227) and 172 (Satin Dark Green). However: 120 turned out to be much too pale, and the 172 had a somewhat grainy consistency. Leaving a horrible finish on the already less-than-perfect PSR mess of the model.
With a heavy heart I eventually decided to remove the initial coat of enamel paint with a two-day bath in foamed oven cleaner, which did the job but also worked on the putty. Disaster struck when one wing came loose while cleaning the model, and the canopy came off, too…
Repairs were possible, but did not improve the model’s surface finish – but I eventually pulled a second coat of paint through, this time with slightly different green tones: a mix of Humbrol 80 (Grass Green) and Revell 360 (fern Green), resulting in a rich but rather yellow-ish tone, and Humbrol 245 (RLM 75, Graugrün), as a subdued contrast. The result, though, reminded a lot of Finnish WWII aircraft, so that I gave the aircraft an NMF cowling (again inspired by the ANBO VIII prototype) and a very light grey (Modelmaster 2077, RLM 63) underside with a low waterline. This gave the model a somewhat Italian touch?
The national markings came from two different Blue Rider decal sheets for modern Lithuanian aircraft, the tactical code and the knight helmet as squadron emblem came from a French Dewoitine D.520 (PrintScale sheet).
After a black ink washing the kit received light panel post-shading to virtually restore some of the missing surface details, some weathering with Tamiya Smoke and silver was done and the model received a final overall coat of matt acrylic varnish.
Well, I am not happy with the outcome – mostly because of the painting mishaps and the resulting collateral damage overall. However, the kitbashed aircraft looks pretty conclusive and plays the role of one of the many European pre-WWII monoplane fighters with modern features like a retractable landing gear and a closed canopy well, it’s a very subtle result.
