Vintage Polikarpov I.16

Vintage Revell kit of a small cool fighter: One of the first monoplane fighters produced and also one of the first with retractable landing gear.
It had it's baptism of fire during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 where it proved itself very manoeuvrable in the hands of the Soviet pilots in the Republican service, and during the Finnish-Russian Winter War from 1939-40 they were often equipped with skis on the landing gear and used on snow covered air fields.
But when the Second World War came to the East Front,the I-16 couldn't really compete with the Messerschmitt; instead a quite unique tactic were developed against unescorted bombers; the I-16 pilots simply would fly up and literally cut off the tail of the bombers using a special steel-edged propeller.

The Soviet Air Force retired the I-16 in 1945 but they were still used by the Spanish Air Force up until 1953. The I-16 were also used by the Chinese Nationalist Air Force, a single one by the Mongolian People's Army Aviation for training purpose as well as three by the Polish Air Force.
A few also fell into enemy hands making both Germany, Romania, Finland, and Facist-Spain (who also produced replicas.

I might actually some day build one more - but in the Winter dressing.