Some rarities from Finnish Aviation Museum

[Crossroads]

Took a visit to Finnish aviation museum as part of my holiday trip. http://www.airforcemuseum.fi/

Here's some rarities for your (hopefully!) enjoyment

An exact replica of Thulin Typ D, a gift from a Swedish civilian that was the origin of Finnish Air Forces. The light blue swastika was the lucky charm of their family, and was taken into use as the insignia at the time.



Founded in 1918, the FAF was one of the first independent air forces in the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Air...l_War_1918

The first backbone of FAF was made of Martinsyde F.4 Buzzards, a plane that missed the Great War by a few months.



19 of these planes were purchased from UK. These served in FAF until late 1930s as training planes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinsyde_Buzzard

Come WW II and Winter War, the very badly equipped FAF had basically two modern types of aircraft on their use.

The one model was the Dutch Fokker XXI D, which fought with some success against Soviet fighters of the time, namely I-16s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_D.XXI



FR-110 , pictured here, achieved 7½ kills during Winter war.

(Behind it, a Finnish Me-109 G6 in late war paint(EDIT: No, the example must be a rushed-in patch of MEs from Germany from June-July 1944, when they were taken into use without a proper paint job. Earlier Finnish MEs had a black/dark green camo as well). Some 160 Me-109G2s, G6s and G8s were bought from Nazi Germany during the so called Continuation War that saw Finland fighting against Soviet Union together with Axis nations.)

The other modern plane at the time of Winter War, was the Bristol Blenheim Mk I and Mk IV two-engine bombers, a Mk Iv pictured here.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Blenheim#Finland

Now, a true rarity, or should I say curiosity, a Finnish VL Pyörremyrsky ("Hurricane" - didn't they know the name was already taken!), designed in Finland using mostly Me-109 technology, notably the engine and the propeller. Completed in 1945, and built pretty much completely using plywood! Apparently had fine flying capabilities, but only two were ever built.

Note the widened landing gear among things, compared to Me-109. Also the wing profile is completely new. A good candidate for the Blitz historical picture quiz, this one?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VL_Py%C3%B6rremyrsky

"The Pyörremyrsky design was considered quite successful. It could outclimb the Bf 109G-6 and it was very manoeuvrable. The only major problem with the design was found to be the low-quality glue used in the joints." :chin: Should have named it - Ikaros? :eek1:


And finally, the true gem of the display, at least for the time being, ta da da daa...

The Worlds Last Brewster B-239 Buffalo




These early model Brewsters, without the heavy armour that compromised the later production model flight capabilities, and nick named "Butt-Walter" (don't ask...) by their pilots, absolutely ruled the Karelian skies in the beginning of Continuation War.

One, of the Brewsters, BW-364, was credited with 42½ kills in total by all pilots operating it, possibly making it the highest-scoring fighter airframe in the history of air warfare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_F2...lo#Finland

More about this plane, BW-372, in particular: http://www.airforcemuseum.fi/brewster_arrived_finland
Salvaging the wreck: http://heninen.net/brewster/english.htm

From the above link: "In Finland fighters was provided by an extra armor around pilot seat (by Winter War experience)"

Good thing they did !!! The pilot was very lucky to escape with his life, as a heavy caliber hit had pierced the added armour from behind the pilots chair, the chair itself broken into half as well:



Hope you enjoy these pictures! Cheers

EDIT: I found out there's a 360 multimedia of the ehibition: http://www.airforcemuseum.fi/flash.asp?file=1

[Huib Versloot]

Thanks for sharing! Do you know if the Fokker DXXI is a restored machine or a replica? It looks like a replica. The one in the Dutch aviation museum is also a replica. It seems none of them have survived the war.
I made some pics there a while ago.

http://picasaweb.google.nl/alfons.de.pal...ionMuseum#

[Crossroads]

Cheers Huib,

It seems the FR-110 restoration project consisted of salvaged parts of FR-110 itself, and of FR-81 and FR-137, some newly created parts were requierd as well. More information: http://www.sci.fi/~fta/fr-fin-2.htm

There were more multimedia available in museum website.

Here's the one about Brewster, it shows the Fokker quite nicely as well: http://www.k-silmailumuseo.fi/flash.asp?file=2

Here's another - "Underneath the DC-3" - with good view to Fokker as well: http://www.k-silmailumuseo.fi/flash.asp?file=5

Bristol Blenheim: http://www.k-silmailumuseo.fi/flash.asp?file=3

[Huib Versloot]

How extremely interesting! I have 2 models still in the box waiting to be built; A 1/48 Finnish Fokker DXXI and a 1/72 Finnish Brewster. I should start to work on those...

The Brewster camo is green & black right? You saw a real one.

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Olive green and black is described in this model kit for the DXXI:

http://www.hyperscale.com/2008/reviews/k...ewse_1.htm

Brewster markings:

http://www.warbirdforum.com/faf3.htm



HSL

[Crossroads]

I believe the Fokker in the museum is painted as they appeared in Winter War.

The box cover of the Fokker, with the black/dark green camouflage is propably (I might be wrong though, did not do any research) a later war specification, used in 1941 and forward (Continuation War), as that was the standard camo pattern of the era, and was used in Brewsters as well.

I would personally use the olive green / Winter War variant, as that was the time when the plane made it self famous in Finland. In 1941, it was already quite seriously out dated...

(The Finnish ME-109 at the museum seems like a rushed job that was taken directly in the use, with an addition of the Finnish insignias and yellow east front tactical markings only. That certainly looks like a German camo to me... That happened a lot in summer 1944 as the Soviet offensive took Finns by surprise and they ordered a lot of material in a haste.)

EDIT: found this http://koti.mbnet.fi/~jjuvonen/planes_fi...1_fin.html It is in Finnish, but hopefully google can translate it to you. Ltn Sarvanto was propably the most famous of Fokker pilots, having made his name by downing six DB-2 bombers in just five minutes. That model is olive green as well. His story is at the bottom of the link.

[Huib Versloot]

The instructions indeed say black and olive green (or completely green) I have the same kit as in Ed's link. I was just wondering how the 'black' looked in reality on the real Buffalo there. Using black (or any dark color, like olive drab or German grey for that matter) on scale models usually looks too dark as on real life large surfaces, dark colors tend to look lighter.
So I would have to opt for either very dark grey, black-green or black with a thin filter sprayed over it or something.

I'll try the Buffalo first, as it was cheaper. If I mess up with the black, I can always decide to make the Fokker just green :)

Thanks anyway for the nice links

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Huib,

Here is another link that has an artist rendition of what the black and olive scheme looked like.
At the bottom of the page you'll find some black and white photos that can give you extra ideas of how the black and olive were applied?

http://heninen.net/brewster/english.htm

I do 1/300th scale WWII planes. I don't think I could work in 1/72nd. Can you post up some pics when you finish? I'd love to see what they look like.



HSL

[Crossroads]

Good luck on the models Huib! Would love to see the completed models as well.

I was just wondering how the 'black' looked in reality on the real Buffalo there.

The real Buffalo appeared just as it was when salvaged from the bottom of the lake, the colours were really worn out so it is difficult to say... If you look at the first multimedia from the museum site, you can actually see the restored Finnish Humu version of Brewster with black/green camo and the salvaged Brewster in the same view, just move the view a bit to the right: http://www.airforcemuseum.fi/flash.asp?file=1

Here's two search result to Finnish modellers site:

Fokker: http://www.pienoismallit.net/haku/galler...=&offset=0

Brewster: http://www.pienoismallit.net/haku/galler...=&offset=0

There's less examples with Fokkers, but both camo versions are presented.

As for Brewsters, there's also some versions with winter camo, white chalk paint over the black colour.

[Huib Versloot]

It seems everybody in Finland is building Brewster Buffalos!

I have a fair idea how i'm going to do it now. Thanks for all the directions.

@ Ed, building on 1/300 must be quite a challenge. It is so small. On the other hand it saves space when you display them. One of the reasons I went from 1/48 to 1/72 was lack of space.

I'll post a few pics when I finish the Buffalo.