The
Boeing Pursuit (P) - P26 Peashooter is probably an airplane only a childish
enthusiast will be aware of existed, by my case … in the course of my country's
history. I first encountered The P-26 on our Sunday Newspaper’s
supplementary feature magazine, The article is actually about one of the
Filipino pilots that flew them to battle, there is not one single image of the
Planes the writers refer to as “P-26” fighters I only got a pretty good idea of
its appearance when a house helper brought home an illustrated "Tagalog Komiks”
with a story visually narrating the same Pilots exploits with some rough drawings of
their P-26 fighter planes. This was pre-high school years when American and
British military planes where more interesting for me probably mainly because
of exposure to TV’s one sided American war series and Hollywood epic war movies.
The
P-26 featured above is made of Cardpaper and one of my latest build only a few
weeks after I’ve started this blog., there are some websites that have images
of card model patterns belonging to different aircrafts but the scale is too
big most of the time for my space, so I have to modify the patterns to make it
at least a 1/72 scale in comparison. I’ve always wanted to get a real plastic
scale kit of this plane but decided to build the P-26 in paper because to my
mind it will be as easy as a kindergarten school arts and craft project anyway;
involving only craft glue and cardboards.
The
build is more difficult than building a regular plastic kit as it turned out,
since at 1/72 scale; cardpaper loose its stiffness when handled too roughly or
soaked with too many glue and adhesive. Some really small parts have to be
scratch build or curved from other material like plastic and rubber. I always
though that the P-26 peashooter would have been a meaningful addition to my cyber shelve. A 1/72 scale plastic kit
of this airplane is not easy to come by
and the kits offered online by professional collector’s cost too
exorbitantly to purchase for my situation, as of this writing the more
affordably viable local or online hobby shops don’t have it on their listings.
The P26 was named “peashooter” because of its gun sight that resembles children peas or seed blowgun toys.
They
said the P-26 Peashooter was the first American all metal monoplane to serve as
a standard fighter of the U.S. army air forces, and indeed it still carry the
traits of its biplane origin like the open cockpit, support wires, tube gun
sight, fixed undercarriage and propeller sequenced firing guns. During the
marauding onslaught of Japanese Air forces on American air bases in the
Philippines at the opening days of World
War II in the Pacific, most American
Fighters that are considered to be at least a near match to the most dreaded Japanese
warplanes where destroyed on the ground,
The surplus Filipinos P-26s; as I
speculate was bypassed by the Japanese attackers as low priority targets because of its obsoleteness and probably
viewed the Diamond shaped insignia of the Philippines Constabulary Air Corp.
(later Phil. Army Air Corps) as un-intimidating.
Whiles
top frontline colonist fighter planes burned on the ground, some
squadrons of PAAC P-26s where able to stay operational to confront a fanatic invaders, shooting down two enemy Nippon fighter and one bomber as legend claimed. Eventually un-preparedness due to
under-estimation a yellow skin aggressor took it toll on war logistics of the
USAFFE prohibiting the continued use of the peashooters wherein the remaining
operational units were scuttled and many of its surviving Filipino pilots
fought as infantrymen or joined the guerilla movement. As far as I’ve searched,
the Boeing Peashooter up to the most recent entry to this blog is the only
Filipino piloted warplane on record that ever been engaged in a real “Plane to
plane” aerial Dogfight. The web has many
comprehensive sites featuring this particular aircraft, technical data,
operational history and exploits on what is now the Philippine Air Force.
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Scratch-built Cardpaper P26 Peashooter with a 1/72 scale A62M ZERO by "Hobbybosss".
Size comparison with a regular sized mens wristwatch. The pilot figure is from a scraped 1/72 matchbox kit..Markings , insignias, color shades and schemes are speculative.
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Size comparison with a regular sized mens wristwatch. The pilot figure is from a scraped 1/72 matchbox kit..Markings , insignias, color shades and schemes are speculative.
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