1/32 Trumpeter MiG-15bis

Gallery Article by Mark L. Rossmann on Jan 8 2018

 

      

The MiG-15(Mikoyan-Gurevich) was one of the first successful swept wing fighters, with an estimate of 18,000 Russian and Foreign license jets produced. 

The first turbojet fighter developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB was the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-9, Using a pair of reverse-engineered German BMW 003 engines The MiG-9 was a troublesome design that suffered from weak, unreliable engines and control problems, it was designed with the straight-style wings common to piston-engined fighters.

The Soviet aviation minister Mikhail Khrunichev and aircraft designer A. S. Yakovlev suggested to Premier Joseph Stalin that the USSR buy the conservative but fully developed Nene engines from Rolls-Royce for the purpose of copying them in a minimum of time. Stalin is said to have replied, "What fool will sell us his secrets?" 

Stalin ok'd it and Mikoyan, engine designer
Vladimir Klimov, and others travelled to the United Kingdom to request the engines. To their amazement, the British Labour government and its Minister of Trade, Sir Stafford Cripps, were perfectly willing to provide technical information and a license to manufacture the Rolls-Royce Nene. Sample engines were purchased and delivered with blueprints. Following evaluation and adaptation to Russian conditions, the windfall technology was tooled for mass-production as the Klimov RD-45. 

The MiG-15's design understandably shared features, and some appearance commonalities with the MiG design bureau's own 1945-46 attempt at a Soviet-built version of the Messerschmitt Me 263 rocket fighter in the appearance of its fuselage. The new MiG retained the previous straight-winged MiG-9's wing and tail-plane placement.

The MiG design was favoured over the La-168 design for mass production. Designated MiG-15, the first production example flew on 31 December 1948. It entered Soviet Air Force service in 1949, and subsequently received the NATO reporting name "Fagot". Early production examples had a tendency to roll to the left or to the right due to manufacturing variances, so aerodynamic trimmers called "nozhi" (knives) were fitted to correct the problem, the knives being adjusted by ground crews until the aircraft flew correctly. 

The MiG-15 was originally intended to intercept American bombers like the B-29. It was even evaluated in mock air-to-air combat trials with a captured U.S. B-29, as well as the later Soviet B-29 copy, the Tupolev Tu-4. To ensure the destruction of such large bombers, the MiG-15 carried autocannons: two 23 mm with 80 rounds per gun and a single 37 mm with 40 rounds.

Chinese MiG-15s took part in the first jet-versus-jet dogfights during the Korean War. The swept-wing MiG-15 quickly proved superior to the first-generation, straight-wing jets of western air forces such as the F-80 and British Gloster Meteor, as well as piston-engined P-51 Mustangs and Vought F4U Corsairs. First Lieutenant Semyon Fyodorovich Khominich scored the first jet-vs-jet victory in history when he bagged the F-80C of Frank Van Sickle, who died in the encounter, only the F-86 Sabre was a match for the MiG.

The MiG-15 flew with the Eastern Bloc countries and 3rd world air forces totaling at least 38 countries, with the likes of Finland, Hungary, Iraq, Cuba, Algeria, Angola, East Germany.

Click on images below to see larger images

This is the Trumpeter 1/32 MiG-15. This is my very first 1/32 scale aircraft, just the right size and number of pieces. I bought it from a club auction with the front half partially built, had to improvise through parts not put together in the proper order. Some internal parts could not be accommodated, such as the engine In the end it went together just fine, I think it turned out looking like a MiG-15bis. 

Paint:

  • Tamiya TS-30 Silver rattle can

  • Testers Stainless Steel rattle can, for the darker panels

Cockpit: 
Was already in place and appears to have been a resin replacement (unknown manufacturer) as the original cockpit was still on the sprue.

Instrument Panel: 
Airscale Early Soviet Jet Dial decals, AS32 SJET. I found an online picture of a MiG-15 instrument panel and was able to match them up.

Decals: 
Cutting Edge "MiG-15bis "Fagots"", CED32017. 
Three aircraft are available;

  1. Sr. Lt Kim Ro Suk (North Korean Defector)

  2. Maj Golshevski, (Russian night fighter ace)

  3. The set I used was for Polish Air Force defector Franciszek Jarek, flying to Bornholm Denmark, the day Stalin's death was announced, March 5, 1953.

Radio Wire: 

  • Fine E Z Line

References: 

  1. Information obtained from Cutting Edge Decals CED32017.

  2. Wikipedia MiG-15 site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-15  

  3. MiG-15 in Action; Squadron/Signals publication 1990. 

Thanks to Steve and his site,

Mark L. Rossmann

Photos and text © by Mark L. Rossmann