I am still waiting on the full ‘movie’ of Warbirds over Oberhausen 2014. In the meantime, this video of two of the planes flown at that event caught my eye. Mostly, what caught my eye was a plane which I have never seen before, the Polikarpov I-16 Type 24 otherwise known as the Rata (“Rat”). The second plane which caught my eye is a Focke Wulf 190 painted in the same color scheme as what I plan to paint the control line Focke Wulf 190 which I am currently building.
The Polikarpov I-16 was a Soviet fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world’s first low-wing cantilever monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear to have attained operational status and as such ‘introduced a new vogue in fighter design’. The I-16 was introduced in the mid-1930s and formed the backbone of the Soviet Air Force at the beginning of World War II. The diminutive fighter, nicknamed “Ishak“, “Ishachok” (“Donkey”, “Burro”) by Soviet pilots, prominently featured in the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Khalkhin Go and the Spanish Civil War – where it was called the Rata (“Rat”) by the Nationalists or Mosca (“Fly”) by the Republicans. The Finnish nickname for I-16 was Siipiorava (“Flying Squirrel”). I’m not sure I’ve heard another plane called by so many nicknames!
In any event, the RATA featured in this video displays the same high level of scale detail and craftsmanship that I have come to admire so much in the European R/C planes that fly at Oberhausen. This is one unusual yet beautiful model airplane.
Most of this video is devoted to the RATA, however, there is some footage of a FW-190, enough for me to see the paint scheme I intend to use and to reaffirm that I like it. Alas, the FW-190 in this video does not meet a good end as seen at the end of the video. I just hope that is not a harbinger of what’s to come once my FW-190 is finished and flying!
As always, Thanks to RCScaleAirplanes for posting this video to YouTube!
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