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.
he fighter was developed on the basis of the Avia B-35. In 1938, a Bulgarian delegation arrived in Czechoslovakia with the aim of selecting new aviation equipment for the modernization of the Bulgarian Air Force. Then they like the Avia B-534 biplane fighter, the Avia B-71 bomber (licensed version of the Soviet SB), as well as several other machines. Avia B-35 made a strong impression on the Bulgarian delegation. The interest in the machine is so great that it was decided to continue the tests. At this point, the Czech Republic was already occupied by Nazi Germany and turned into the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
Bulgaria and the Avia company conclude a preliminary agreement, according to which, upon successful completion of the tests in Bulgaria, license production of the aircraft will begin, and the Bulgarian name of the aircraft - DAR-11 - has been specified. The trials are already continuing with active Bulgarian participation. A large number of variants of the structure, units and equipment were developed and tested to arrive at the prototype Avia B-35-3, which received the index Avia B-135. The prototype flew for the first time on June 20, 1939.
My personal story related to these events is my acquaintance with the son of one of the Bulgarians who implemented this project, a friend of my father.
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.
