1/32 Trumpeter Mig-21MF "Fishbed J"

by Steve Negley

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  Through all my years of modeling I have had some kind of fascination with the Russian jet fighter, especially the Migs. This was my first attempt at building the Mig-21 in a larger scale and I decided to do it after building basically this same aircraft for a friend in 1/48th scale. The outcome of that kit was so impressive I wanted one in the larger scale for my own collection. I remember seeing the old Revell kit of this variant and I wasn't really that impressed with the die work, but seeing what was produced by Trumpeter sold me on making a purchase of this kit. The die work on this thing is just about flawless, heck you could almost put it together without cement the parts fit so well. The detail is second to no one, and the model finished out of the box I'm sure would make the most experienced modeler want to gawk at it a few times. As the build progressed I did find a couple things that were inherent problems. Those gripes are the radar cone that fits into the front of the nose, there's not a whole lot of material there to make a strong fastening point, so if you're not careful handling it, it will easily break off...and become a real pain in the you know what to get it back in the right spot to re-fasten it. After breaking the nose cone off a couple of times I did come up with a way to remedy this though. I took some 1/8 inch plastic stringer and spanned the inside of the nose in the form of a cross then cemented the nose cone to this cross, it worked out nicely and made a nice strong attach point. The other gripe is the main landing gear, it doesn't hold up real well for such a heavy model when it's finished. You will need to add weight to the nose to keep the CG right and keep the nose wheel on the ground.

Click on images below to see larger images

  The cockpit interior is adequately detailed and I used almost all of it out of the box. However, I chose to scratch build the instrument panel and did so with some .030 sheet styrene and a Waldron jet instrument set and Bezels to finish it out. The ejection seat, side panels, etc are all nicely done. I added some seat and shoulder harnesses using the Waldron jet buckle set to finish out the seat. I did no converting to the exterior of this kit. All I had to decide was the kind of color scheme I wanted to use and how to arm the jet. I chose to model the purely interceptor version of this fighter so I mounted air to air missiles on both the inside and outside under wing pylons.

   For the color scheme I decided on a purely four tone Russian camouflage, 1 brown and 2 greens over a light grey underside in Russian markings. The decal sheet is of good quality and adhesion and I experienced no problems in the application.  This aircraft operated out of a base near Moscow in the home defense role and it later served in operations in Afghanistan also. This is a very nice kit from Trumpeter and it makes a nice addition to any 1/32 scale aircraft collection.

Steve

Photos and text © by Steve Negley