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Stachel's Pfalz (replica) from The Blue Max


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One of my dream builds has been a model of one of the two Pfalzes built for The Blue Max, the more accurate but poorer-handling G-ATIJ:

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'TIJ flew in several other films until ultimately being retired to a hangar in Alabama. There it was found and its location passed on to Blue Max fan and collector Peter Jackson, who then bought it and had the sad old plane shipped to NZ. The aircraft was restored to flight - in its film scheme - at Omaka in New Zealand and flew as ZK-JPI, making its debut at the 2005 Classic Fighters Airshow. That was a highlight for me! It is now on static display at the Omaka Heritage Centre, appropriately on a red carpet, but is apparently still ready-to-fly. They have it displayed under a projector screen which shows the first "dogfight" of the film on a loop, which features this aircraft and its sister Pfalz...which Sir Peter also owns, and is used as a training aeroplane for The Vintage Aviator Limited.

Like many aviation enthusiasts I love the film and when I lived in Blenheim in 2007 I visited the museum often to see this machine in person. One of the reasons was to photograph every inch - over the barriers - in preparation to build it from the 1/72 Roden kit. This is the said kit with the Encore decals and a few mods to better represent ZK-JPI.

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It was a looooong build but it was great to get some rigging practice and experience with pre-cut lozenge decals. AND I've finally got ZK-JPI in my collection.

Now to do it all over again in 1/32 sometime down the line...

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Thanks gents, I appreciate your kind words. Steve and Joel - high praise coming from you, thank you! (No offence my dear RotorheadTX :thumbsup: )

This was my first rigged model and my first experience with decal instead of paint for the vast majority of the model. I've learned new skills and have some things to fix - and improve in future builds - but above all I finally have a model of one of my favourite aircraft. This is also on my to-do list in 1/32 down the line.

Edited by K5054NZ
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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks gents, I appreciate your kind words. Steve and Joel - high praise coming from you, thank you! (No offence my dear RotorheadTX 70.gif )

This was my first rigged model and my first experience with decal instead of paint for the vast majority of the model. I've learned new skills and have some things to fix - and improve in future builds - but above all I finally have a model of one of my favourite aircraft. This is also on my to-do list in 1/32 down the line.

Amazing job on this little model.

I Have built Wingnut Wings 1/32 version i also have their 1/32 Gotha yet to build !!!

Edited by skystreak80
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skystreak - I'd like to build this machine from the WNW kit, but I need to get a couple of their other builds under my belt first.

Rocat - sure is. Looking at the photos, it looks like a 1/48 kit to me! Thanks for the kind words!

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