Polish fighter plane PZL P.11c COBI 5742 - World War II

You know that:

• The P.11 was completely designed by Panstwowe Zaklady Lotnicze in 1930.
• At the time of its creation it was a very advanced machine. The development of aviation continued to move forward very quickly and by the beginning of World War II, with the arrival of modern German aircraft, the P.11 was already obsolete.
• The first flight took place in August 1931.
• The P.11 fighters excelled in extraordinary agility and the machine, piloted by Wladyslaw Gnys, shot down the first aircraft (Ju-87) in World War II.
• The fighter brigade assigned to protect Warsaw was very successful, shooting down 31 enemy aircraft. However, it could not resist the qualitative and quantitative superiority of Germany for long.
• Of the 8 versions produced, the P.11c was the most widely used. These aircraft were equipped with Skoda Mercury engines assembled under license by the Warsaw factory.
• The P.11 was also used by other countries such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia, Romania and also by the Soviet Union, which stole several units from occupied Latvia.
• About a third of the aircraft produced were retrofitted with two additional machine guns built into the wings and a Philips radio.
• 175 of the C version were produced.
• Tadeusz Sawicz, whose figure is included in the package, was an important Polish fighter pilot of the 111th Fighter Squadron, who defended Poland from the first days of the war in the P.11. After the defeat of Poland he moved to France and then flew on Bloch MB.152 to Great Britain where he participated in the crucial air battles for Britain.

Technical parameters:

• dimensions: wingspan 10.72 m, length 7.55 m, height 2.8 m
• weight 1 147 kg
• power unit air-cooled ten-cylinder Škoda Mercury V-S2 with 440 kW
• maximum speed 360 km/h
• climb speed 12.4 m/s
• maximum flight level 8 000 m
• range 503 km
• fuel tank capacity 313 l in the fuselage and 11 l reserve tank in the left wing
• armament 2-4x machine gun PWU vz.33 calibre 7,92 mm + 4x bomb 12,5 kg suspended under the wings
• crew 1