Special Hobby Aircraft 1/72 Letov S328v Float Version BiPlane Kit

If you say Letov Š.328.v, what every modeler or at least every Czech modeler expects you to talk about is the floatplane version of this iconic Czechoslovak inter war biplane aircraft. But do not be mistaken, the 328.v version was not only a floatplane, it was first of all a specialized target tug machine. The main reason for mistaking the real identity seems of course to be the “v” suffix seemingly standing for vodní or water, but in fact it meant vlečný, or target tug. And yes, to be capable of towing the targets, the aircraft needed some specialized device installed, the target winch. This winch was located between the front and rear cockpits and unfortunately for today´s modelers, this detail does not seem to be photographed too much leaving us with the necessity to try and reconstruct its closest possible appearance, using help from a leading Czech aircraft historian and author Michal Ovčáčik. The target tug device to be added to our kit as we have designed it will be made part of resin components and part of photo-etched details. In the computer rendered images below, you can see a grey styrene floor of the crew attending the winch, brown resin parts depicting the winch reels inside the fuselage and a pulley beneath the fuselage and in yellow is the pulley mounting made from photo etches. The resin winch is shown with its cast supports inside the framework and the fuselage styrene parts have been omitted from the renders for better clarity.