KP

1/72 Jak-23 model kit

Product Article by Matthias Rabiller on July 13 2003

 

 

Several sweet little boxes were sitting on a bottom shelf at the model shop.
I donīt know why, but I have a particular affection for this bottom shelf, with all those Eastern Block kits...
Well, those sweet tiny boxes (9*18*3 cm) were KP kits, and among them was a Jak 23 (or Yak 23). I merely picked it because of the box, and besides, it was so cheap (3,5 Euros)... Knowing the quality of some KP clear parts, I also bought a Pavla thermoformed canopy, which more or less doubled the price of the model...
   Opening the box... the Jak 23 is a very tiny plane (it is the ultimate development of the piston engine Jak 3), and the box is not too crowded. There are not many parts, and the layout is very classical. 
   Panel lines are raised, but fine and precise. The surface is not pebbly, but slightly irregular, in a way Iīve never seen on real planes. It will be better after a quick polishing with steel wool.
The overall shape is well captured. There are three points that will need correcting.

  • The first is the fin. Its bottom is not round enough (this will be extremely simple to address), and the rudder is slightly too narrow.

  • The second is the region surrounding the exhaust pipe. The fuselage will have to be thinned over the pipe to make it more markedly bulbous (at this point, the section of the fuselage must have the shape of the figure "8"). The exhaust pipe itself will gain to be replaced by a longer piece of tube.

  • The third point is the intake, and it is much more troublesome. The lips are way too thick, whereas the profile in the middle of it has a very wrong shape. There will be quite much rebuilding work to correct this. This will also imply a rebuild of the front gear well.

   Speaking of the gears... they are oversimplified. The main gear wells seem to be not deep enough, but they just look so on the real plane. I just canīt understand how the gear can stick in this tiny place. There must be some witchcraft involved, or they just menaced it to be sent to gulag if it would not accept to retract in the provided wells! Doors are just very loosely fitting to the wells...

   The cockpit is quite minimal. Instrument panels and consoles are there, there is a control stick and a seat, but the surface of those element is a bit simplistic. It will do, but you will have to do some scratch building to get a tip-top cockpit. I find hard it to believe that the seat is as far back as the instruction says to place it, but sadly enough, I have no reference pics of the cockpit. At worst, there will be some reasoned artistic licence involved.
   Three decal options are included (Polish, Czech and civilian). All are NMF, and the decal sheet, printed by Propagteam, is beautiful: thin, dense, mate but not too much, and well in-register. 
   All in all... itīs a nice kit, and I would recommand it. It is certainly not at the level of Tamygawa or Azur/MPM/... stuff, but it will still build into a very honest replica of a plane that one does not see so often. With some work, it can certainly do a contest winner.

Click on image below to see larger image

Here are some reference sites...
http://softland.com.pl/aerojac/artykul/jak23.html
http://www.duffeyk.freeserve.co.uk/yak-23.htm
http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/ram/yak-23.html
http://capturedplanes.tripod.com/yak-23.htm
http://www.military.cz/russia/air/jak/Jak_23/jak_23.htm
http://www.boris.elknet.pl/av_hist/samoloty/po_ii_ws/jak_23/jak_23.htm
Lucasz also found a book on the subject... highly commanded, there is good reference...
Piotr M. Butowski "Samolot mysliwski Jak-23", TBiU 112, Wydawnictwo MON, Warszawa 1986, Poland and the kit manufacturer site:
http://www.infos.cz/kopro/homep_e.htm
Iīd also like to thank Laurent Stern and Lukasz Kedzierski for their kind help and documentation of this review. Thank you guys!

Matthias

Photos and text Đ by Matthias Rabiller