Tail End Charlie
Illustration: Martin Novotný
History of one boxart story
Every month during the editorial board of INFO Eduard magazine, we also plan the popular boxart stories for the content of the following issues. They were first written about in detail by my colleague Richard Plos in April 2022. Most of the one-page articles are written by colleagues who prepared the kit or were involved. We also frequently write boxart stories for re-releases. If the kits were issued a few years ago, the writer has a relatively easy job. I will explain why it is so at the end of this article. But if it's a painting that was done ten or nearly twenty years ago, it can be quite a challenging task.
Just such a conundrum is the painting created by our late friend Martin Novotný in 2006 for the 1/48th scale Polikarpov I-16 Type 10 kit we are re-releasing this month. It shows the I-16 in a dogfight with Finnish Brewsters, one of the Finns is obviously in serious trouble. After nearly twenty years, none of my colleagues remembered how the brief for Martin Novotny was defined. When Martin created the painting in 2006, he was apparently given a fairly loose brief and painted a very lively scene.
Since I am interested in Finnish - Soviet air battles, I can imagine what the process might have been back then to create the I-16 “Red 4” markings in the kit instructions. In the publication Polikarpov Fighters in action Pt. 2 - Aircraft No. 162, there is a colour profile of this machine and a cropped photo. The author of this photographic booklet, Hans-Heiri Stapfer, has, in my opinion, quite realistically estimated that this is probably a trainer aircraft from late in the war, probably from 1944. In fact, the fuselage side sports an insignia which design was not introduced until the second half of the war. The text in our instructions was written in this sense. In the re-release, we have mistakenly stated that it is a 1941 aircraft, but the details of the text do not contain this typo and the year 1944 is given.
The quality of aviation-historical research is constantly evolving, so today we are in a much different situation in terms of available information than in 2006. I have gone through all the volumes of the history of the Finnish Air Force co-authored by Keskinen and Stenman for the years 1941 to 1944. Unless I missed something, not a single Finnish B-239 was shot down in a fighter engagement in 1941, and in 1942 most of these American machines were credited to Hurricane pilots. But both in August and October 1942, one Brewster was shot down by I-16 pilots of the 71st IAP KBF. In 1943, when one of these rugged aircraft was destroyed in combat, it was credited to aviators with modern domestically produced planes or Airacobra pilots. Same in 1944, only in late 1944, during the so-called Lapland War, the German flak became the enemy of the Brewsters.
This detailed information was not available at the time the boxart was created and the I-16 in Martin's painting certainly does not belong to the 71st IAP KBF. Moreover, Polikarpov had a yellow band on the fuselage in the original painting. This was recommended by the In Action publication, but back in 2006 we pointed out in the instructions that the band was probably white. Therefore, we adjusted the colour on the boxart of the re-release. I still think that this is a great painting to remember Martin Novotny by.
Today we approach the preparation of the boxart in a completely different way. The aircraft that will become the main subject of the painting is chosen by a team of colleagues from the final selection of machines whose decals will be included in the kit. Depending on the edition of the kit, we choose the theme for the boxart from four to twelve aircraft and believe me, this is sometimes a difficult choice. The aircraft we select for our kits are the result of a vote on a usually much longer list of aircraft.
When we agree on the aircraft that will eventually appear in the painting, we prepare a detailed specification for the artist describing the situation in which the aircraft and its pilot or crew should be depicted. We often work with an analysis of the reports of both fighting sides and try to keep the details of the terrain, altitude, cloud cover, and the intensity and coloration of daylight according to the day and hour of the fight. Often we also call in outside consultants for details of the fights. I think our artists kind of hate us for such detailed commissions sometimes. Although Piotr Forkasiewicz told me recently, it is these extremely detailed painting briefs that he really likes and suit his style of work.
The amount of information that we gather when preparing a boxart led us to the idea of starting a one-page boxart story a few years ago, because we were sorry not to share this valuable and interesting historical information. We felt that our customers did not know how realistic the situations we present on our boxarts were. I believe that we are the only manufacturer that is this careful about the historical veracity of the paintings on our kits.
I hope you enjoy the work of all my colleagues who work on our kits and boxart stories. A friend recently told me that the boxart story is his favourite reading in the morning over coffee. I firmly believe that there are many more coffees to come with us!
Jan Bobek