Wings of Intent: Piero Magni PM-1 - Choroszy 1/72nd scale resin

(The completed model can be seen here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2022/07/piero-magni-pm-1-choroszy-172nd-resin.html

Where do planes come from? From the sky, of course. This kit also came down from the sky, flying all the way from The Foglands (a.k.a. Eng Land), thanks to the generosity of friend and fellow modeler Andrew Nickeas. This was long ago, and the box remained dormant in an inaccessible crag down there in the modeling dungeon. Recently I dug out Andrew's gift and started to work on it. This kit is of a PM-1, an early incarnation on a series of planes, with straight leading edge, flying stabilizer and no registrations yet. Looking at my references, I found that the registration of the "Vittoria" (the plane was named after the builder's daughter) was only applied in 1929 to the reconstructed PM-1 (now PM-2), after some changes involving a slight arrow on the wing leading edge and normal stabilizer (both planes were called "Vittoria"), although the plane flew in the interim without registrations. There are out there some pretty models built from Choroszy's PM-1 and PM-2 kits but, as we know, interpretation of old B&W photos is a prickly subject, and here we are left many times to our own devices, speculations and educated guesses. I believe photos show that the wing was a light color in both cases, similar to the wheel covers -if not the same-, and not the dark tone of the rest of the plane as sometimes modeled as the PM-2. The PM-2 kit box actually also shows a light colored wing on the side view, but a dark color on the color cues, not sure why. Contemporary accounts pride in the fact that the plane was completely covered in plywood, so I am thinking that perhaps cream/ivory paint is the way, as many Italian planes favored that color. Photos also clearly show that there were on the PM-2 additional registrations on the enlarged (and mobile) wing struts (half reg. on each), thus I will depart a bit from the other builders' and the kit manufaturer choices here. I can't see a tone difference that may signal black for nose and landing gear either, and specially one photo shows that (see below), but as the available photos are unfortunately not great, that's a open matter. Both kits have instructions that show some black in the scheme. Surprisingly, the PM-2 decals are all white, in spite of the light-colored wing of the kit box (but dark color in the remaining color cues).

The Choroszy kit is quite nice and has plenty of detail, but suffers from the seemingly unavoidable faith of some resin kits: the bane of broken-in-transit parts (more practical manufactures at least add "ears" to protect the more fragile casts). Therefore, the first task at hand is to repair/recreate the broken/missing smallish parts. The internal structure of the fuselage is fully depicted, the cockpit detail is well represented, and the flying surfaces are thin and smooth. I found only very few air bubbles, but both wide struts were bananas (easily corrected with piping-hot water), and a small number of little blobs, blemishes and dents had to be sanded down, or filled with putty and sanded flush. The mating of the two fuselages on the other hand is absolutely perfect, and with locating devices to boot! As tiny resin wheel axles are notoriously prone to breakage, I replaced the landing gear part with an airfoiled plastic section and metal pins, and the resin exhausts with solder wire. Regarding those exhausts, photos show that it went not over the part of the nose that follows the spinner, but between the two parts (which accounts for the gap between the two of them noticed by many modelers. There are no locating marks for the horizontal stabilizer, the landing gear legs, and the struts, which unfortunately leaves modelers in a pickle and to their own devices there. I metal-pinned all the tail surfaces and the legs to insure strength.

It's a treat for Golden Age modelers that Choroszy decided to kit this little beauty of such "modern" lines, with the innovative wing strut "air brakes" and a form of NACA cowl...that NACA apparently used to develop, well...the NACA cowl. Magni conceived the planes as flying laboratories to evaluate all these innovations including an automatic parachute. Magni called the configuration of the PM planes "triangular sesquiplanes", a feature also used by Bellanca as early as 1922 in his "CF" plane.

I hope Andrew is happy that the kit he gifted kit finally came to life!

Andrew's kind note inside the box:

Parts as they arrived, with a coat of primer that Andrew had applied to spot potential problems::

Parts after some cleanup and wash:

As explained in the introduction, a few small parts came already broken or missing, and will have to be replaced:

I decided to substitute the kit's resin exhausts with solder wire (you will see later on that looking at photos I realized that their location is not accurate on the kit, and made new ones). Also seen is the replacement wheel axle, made of airfoiled plastic and metal pins, as the resin ones are completely unreliable and prone to breakage. The spinner, that was a bit too blunt at the tip and with a small hole, was lightly sanded to for more realistic transition:

The kit's inst.pan has been painted (my mistake, should be wood, not black), but later on (you will see) I made another with more instruments as per contemporary description:

Some paint and a bit of primer...

...that reveals some blemishes:

Perfect fit of the fuselage sides (dry-run), one of the few parts with locating devices:

The prop being painted with oils to simulate the wood grain:

The interior in place with new inst. pan.:

Fuselage closed:

More primer:

Prop and wheels ready:

More primer:

Photoetched metal control horns are added:

All tail feather were metal-pinned and added. Their location is not market on the fuselage:

The legs were also metal-pinned and added, and again no location cue is given on the molds:

The wing is painted ivory as the wheels:

Some old material on this plane:

From an old Italian magazine found on the Net:

From Les Ailes:

From Aviation Week:

The other side of the wing is airbrushed:

Further material on the Magni pre-NACA cowl arrangement, and corroboration that the exhaust, as I thought, goes half-hidden between spinner and cowl (again, hence the space between them in then kit):

The brown color is applied:

Still have to paint the other side of the struts, and then let everything thoroughly dry before final assembly, plus fabricate the two small windshields (one above and one below the wing):