COBI Dewoitine D.520 Set 5720

COBI's Dewoitine D.520 is a 1:32 model built from 283 blocks, 27.5 cm long with a 33 cm span, in historical camouflage and markings. The propeller and ailerons move, the canopy opens and the wheels fold. A figure of a French pilot with an oxygen mask is included, plus a black display stand and a nameplate. All markings are pad-printed; no stickers.

The cannon fires through the propeller shaft

The D.520's main weapon is a 20 mm Hispano-Suiza cannon mounted inside the engine, firing down the hollow centre of the propeller shaft and out through the spinner.

The French called it a moteur-canon, and it solves several problems at once. A gun on the centreline needs no synchronisation gear, because nothing passes in front of it. It has no convergence point, so the shells go exactly where the aircraft is pointing at any range. And the engine block absorbs the recoil of a weapon far heavier than a wing structure would tolerate.

Hispano-Suiza pioneered the arrangement in the 1930s, and it became a French signature. The Germans adopted it for the Bf 109F and the Soviets for the Yakovlev fighters — both using engines descended from or inspired by the same idea.

The cost is that the engine has to be designed around it from the start. You cannot add a moteur-canon to an existing V-12; the reduction gearing, the shaft and the mounting all have to be there from the drawing board.

The aircraft

France's best fighter of 1940, and around 755 were built. Polish pilots flying for France in 1940 received 26 of them. Production continued after the surrender for Vichy, and the type ended up in Italian, Bulgarian and Romanian service. The last examples stayed in French use until 1953.

In the COBI range

Set 5734 is the later and larger COBI D.520 with 335 pieces in Vichy markings. Set 5724 is the Morane-Saulnier MS.406, the fighter the D.520 was meant to replace.

Specifications

Pieces: 283 · Figures: 1 pilot · Scale: 1:32 · Display stand and nameplate · No stickers
Model dimensions: 27.5 × 33 × 8 cm (10.8 × 13.0 × 3.1 in)