Avia B-135 Лястовица
![](/albums/img/3/4/1/1312341-17651-86-p.jpg "RS disappointed me with their "Pencil" DO-17 model. I hope they did better. | View full picture")
![](/albums/img/3/4/3/1312343-17651-39-p.jpg "My concerns. What will happen to the castings? To be honest I will say that the stitching looks very good. I don't know the exact term in English, in Bulgaria we call it "разшивка". I'm talking about the embossed lines and imitations of different materials on the body of the model. | View full picture")
![](/albums/img/3/4/4/1312344-17651-14-p.jpg "Despite the presence of photoetched circuit boards, the "furnishings" are more than modest. | View full picture")
Kommentarer
Tony TonovHi Jivko, I'm taking a seat.
Go ahead, no worries the model is good. I've built it couple of years ago.
My advice - Make a dry fitting first just in case. And don't put too much efforts in detailing the cockpit (unless you leave it open), almost nothing can be seen through the "glass"
"Разшивка" - panel lines 🙂
Живко ДжаковGuys, thanks for your support!
Tony, dry collecting was a very good idea indeed. It is already waiting for paint, but it will be delayed. Tu-2 lags behind.
Живко ДжаковFriends, I'm slow, but I have an excuse. I'm trying to make nice masks for the model. I had to draw everything on the computer, cut it with a big machine and then test.
Moreno BaruffiniDear Jivko, you are not slow, you are super! I'm really interested in your approach. I can't help you, I'm sorry 😅
Ventsislav GramatskiGreat to see another build of the Swallow! I recently built the same model. My advice would be similar to Tony Tonov's - don't bother too much about the cockpit detailing. The canopy is very small and rather thick so even though it is clear, the distortions prevent seeing much inside (so much for my effort with the included PE set in the kit and scratchbuild details).
The other problem point I had was the main undercarriage - there are no peg holes and neither strut would fit. I had already prepainted everything so ot was quite a fiddly and difficult assembly.
Album info
I present to you a Swallow. The plane was supposed to be built in Bulgaria. After the first 12 machines, production stops. All the planes were practically unfinished. They have not been fitted with the intended cannon and are left with only two machine guns. For this reason, they ended up at the pilot school in Lower Metropolis. Their chance appeared on March 30, 1944. I personally came across the story of this day many years ago, reading the account of one of the pilots who participated in the battle. Briefly what happens:
Despite their weak armament, on March 30, 1944, four machines of this type took off to intercept American bombers headed for Sofia. The decision for this flight was taken arbitrarily by the head of the school, Captain Krastyo Atanasov, without a superior order. Take off machines with board numbers 3, 5, 8 and 11, piloted by Capt. Atanasov, Second Lieutenant Petar Manolev, Field Marshal Nedko Kolev and Field Marshal Yordan Ferdinandov. The four planes catch up with the last, fourth wave of bombers (about 60-70 machines out of a total of about 450), in the area north of Sofia. The four Avia B-135s are the only Bulgarian aircraft in the sky at this moment. In the Radomir region, the Atanasov-Ferdinandov couple caught up with a B-24 Liberator that had broken down and, according to them, managed to set fire to its two right engines with their fire, as a result of which the bomber lost altitude. Feldfebel Ferdinandov also reported seeing five members of the crew of the American machine bailing out with parachutes. The bomber was recorded as "probably shot down", Captain Atanasov was reprimanded for his willfulness and praised for the probable victory.
Unfortunately, the last surviving machines were used for targets after 1945.
