1/48 Eduard MiG-21PFM

Gallery Article by Ronald Beelen on Dec 28 2013

 

 

This is my latest MiG-21 creation in the quarter-scale. Again an excellent Eduard kit (n° 8237) from the Czech Republic. It's a fairly new kit, released in 2013. As always with the Eduard ProfiPack-line you have a lot of choices to finish your model. There are five options: a Vietnamese, a Czechoslovak, a Soviet, an Egyptian and a Polish. I choose the Soviet MiG because of it's interesting colors. There are a lot of reviews of the Eduard's MiG-21 kits on the net if your interested to build one, I can only recommend them strongly.

 

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So, some history about the real plane. Eduard doesn't provide much information. They say it is a MiG-21PFM of the Barnaul Higher Air Force School with airbases in Kamen na Obi and Slavgorod. The year is ca. 1988.

At first I didn't find much more on the internet until I googled in Russian. Then a lot of information turned up. Logically, but not for a non-Russian speaker.

It seems that the Barnaul Higher Air Force School had three airbases: Slavgorod, Kalmanka and Kamen na Obi, all near Barnaul in the Siberian Military District of the VVS. These bases had different aircraft types: L-29, L-39 and MiG-21, before that the Yak-28. The Kamen na Obi base flew with the MiG's. So that's were my MiG belongs to, more specific the 96th training regiment. At the moment the base is no longer active. Looking at the website of the Barnaul Higher Air Force School, I even found a picture of the actual plane n° 105, you can find it here

About the buildup. As usual it starts with the cockpit, then the engine exhaust, wheelbays. Then you must join the fuselage halves, then put on the spine and wings. Then normally the wheels, I however do that last. Painting first is easier I think. I used Tamiya XF18 middle blue for the underside, XF59 desert yellow, XF10 brown and XF26 deep green for the camouflage. The metals are painted with Vallejo Model Air. Oh and I first pre-shaded the panellines.

After painting, it got a cote of Humbrol Gloss. Then it was time for the decals. They were set with Mircoscale Micro Sol. Then I sprayed the panellines and decals with Tamiya X19 smoke. After a final wash with Promodellers Black and Dirt I gave it a matt cote with Vallejo matt varnish.

The missiles are RS-2US (AA-1 Alkali), I don't know if they were used in real life with this particular plane. The figure in one of the pictures is Svetlana, a SU-122 tank crew member in scale 1/35, just for fun.

I hope you liked reading this. Onwards to the next one, the Eduard MiG-21R, just released. 

Ronald Beelen

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Photos and text © by Ronald Beelen