Payen Pa 22/2 - 1/72 kit

In 1935 Nicolas Roland Payen began design of a tandem-wing airplane to be powered by a ramjet being developed by H. F. Malot. The engine did not work and Payen completed the design of his Model Pa.22 Flechair (Arrow) around an 8 litre 180 HP Regnier 6B-01 inverted, six cylinder, inline, air-cooled engine for the 1939 Coupé Deutsch de la Meurthe race. The unflown Pa.22 was being tested in the Eiffel Laboratories full-size wind tunnel at Chalais-Meudon when Paris fell to the Germans. The Germans finished the wind tunnel tests and took the airplane to the Flight Test Center at Villacoublay where it was first flown in October 1942 by Payen s pilot, Jacques Charpantier. At Villacoublay the plane was repainted in German colors and returned to Payen s factory in the old Deperdussin works at Juvisy for modifications. There it was destroyed in an Allied raid on nearby rail yards in 1944. The time between its capture and its first flight make it clear the Pa.22 was not a priority program with the Germans.