I saw the post on the 1:72 La-7 and it remindered of a question I had regarding Gavia’s 1:48 La-7, the one boxing of the kit that inclused two russian markings and a Chech one, at least I think it’s Chech, the JV-8 markings, can anybody tell me if this it a post war version or was the Chech airforce liberated and armed before the end of the war? (or did they operate like the Free French in Africa?) I was wondering because I’ve been working on gathering and building an example from every nationality involved in the airwar in WWII (fighters 'cause in 1:48 I can’t see anyother way to actually do this), but info on some countries is pretty hard to comeby, like Denmark for example, I’m building a Danish Fokker D.XXI, but I haven’t found much info on it. What do you guys think?, would examples of Swedish and Swiss aircraft be apropriate for this collection aswell?, they were neatral, but they did have airforces…
The Czechs definitely did have the La-7 in their inventory, but I don’t think they started to get Soviet made gear until after the war. I’m familiar with the kit you’re speaking of and have seen the decals and can say that the Czech example is most certainly a post war one, that style of code letters didn’t start being used by the Czechs until after the war.
The primary Czech fighter in the immediate post war period was the Spitfire which the Czech pilots had used while based in England during the war. The MK.IX Spits that the Czech finished the war with did form the backbone of the reformed Czech air force for a short period of time.
Soviet gear didn’t start coming to the Czechs until the Soviets had gotten themselves something modern into their own inventory so that the new satelite states could defend themselves with hand-me-down gear.
I believe the Czechs and Polish actually had a lot of WWII era Soviet stuff in their post war inventories.
Thanks, I had figured that might be postwar.