Full size printed plans Peanut Scale "Ivan's Iron Dog" be built very light for outstanding performance.

Full size printed plans No material

Ivan's Iron Dog

The P-39 was built like a tank; in Soviet service it proved deadly against the Nazipanzers. This model should be built very light for outstanding performance.

Full size printed plan on a sheet 11” x 17”

Two page article with building notes and photos

Peanut Scale

Wingspan 13”

Power Rubber

By JOHN BERRYMAN

The P-39-the airplane nobody loved. Our own fliers called it the "Iron Dog:' Minus its turbocharger, and shipped to the British, it was judged "unsuitable for combat" in Europe. We even tried to sell a few to the French, but the country fell before they arrived. Saburo Saki, the famous Japanese Ace, shot them down in droves. Quite an inauspicious beginning for what may have been the first single-engined fighter to exceed 400 mph in level flight.

But the Russians, who were starving for aircraft of any description, used them, and used them well. With its powerful 37mm cannon firing through the spinner, it was an efficient tank-buster in the early days of the war. Its trike gear must have also made it amenable for use on primitive Russian airfields as well.

If anyone ever loved the P-39, it had to have been the Russians and we modelers.

Thank you for looking