1/48 Revell MiG-25RB Foxbat

Gallery Article by Dave Grogan on Aug 15 2013

  India Independence Day 

 

 

Here is my Indian Air Force MiG-25RB "KP 354". This aircraft was provided in the original order from Russia in 1981 and was still in operation until retirement of the type from the IAF in 2006. The kit is from Revell (original boxing using the IAF decals, which needed to be corrected, from the newest boxing) which was quite a handful. From start to finish, it took 2428 days. Granted, in the time it took, I completed a 6 month deployment and 3 1/2 year sea tour, had three kids, finished my Master's degree, ran lots of miles and just lived my life. So, of course, it was an on-again, off-again build. 

 

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The kit required significant cutting and chopping and sanding etc. to get something close to correct. My original plan to simply correct a couple major items and move forward was hampered at every turn by a desire to "improve it just a little". Before I knew it I was scratchbuilding parts and making molds for resin replacement parts for all the landing gear bays, their associated doors, the cockpit, the exhausts and afterburner trunking, the aft end of the fuselage, parachute housing, main wheel hubs and engine faces (and probably others I am forgetting). There were numerous other corrections that were made of plastic sheet or shaped putty or sweat and sanding sticks. The biggest challenge was to collect some references to construct the camera pallet so that I could display it in the lowered position. The only aftermarket part was the KM-1 ejection seat.

Although it took forever, I did really enjoy the build because it challenged me in so many different ways. I appreciate all the support and comments and suggestions that I got from the forums as people followed the build. Of course, Kittyhawk announced their new 1/48 Foxbat kit as I was coming to a close. I guess I will buy a couple of them but I have 8 or so more Revell kits to do first. So maybe I should get cracking on a RU, RBSh, BM or a P. Hopefully it won't be 6 more years before I am done.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave "parche" Grogan

 

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Photos and text © by Dave Grogan