davetur

Maybe to have enough clearance for the wider tail surfaces of the PL-8 missile. ;) Davide

Nice build, is it Italeri or Fujimi? Please post more photos! Davide

And some confirmation from a neutral source from the same book: MONITORING INTERCEPTS Retired Swedish air force fighter controller Roll Ollsson routinely monitored SR-71 intercepts conducted by both friendly NATO aircraft and not so friendly Soviet MiG-25s and MiG-31s whilst the'Habu' was operating over the Baltic Sea; 'We would detect possible SR-71 "Baltic Express" flights about an hour before the aircraft physically entered the area. The "Habu" always headed into the Baltic Sea over a reporting point named "Codan", located about 50 miles (80 km) south of Copenhagen, and on a heading of

From the Osprey book "Loockheed SR-71 operations in Europe and the Middle East" by Paul Crickmore,2009, pages 57 through 67. The same text was the subject of an article on the Air Forces Monthly Magazine, December 2004. I tried to correct all errors, but some of the ones introduced by the OCR may have escaped. FRONTLINE FIGHTER OPERATIONS An insight into MiG-25PD operations as conducted by the 787th IAP (Istrebitelniy Aviatsionniy Folk, or Fighter Aviation Regiment) against Det 4 SR-71 s flying over the Baltic Sea is reproduced here courtesy of Lutz Freund, editor of Sowjetische Fliegerkraft

Now, to really be a hero on this forum you could do two things: 1. sell the 3d model to some manufacturer of aftermarket resin parts who can produce a master out of it: I'm sure Aires is one, or 2. find the way to transform the 3d model into suitable file (.stl) that can be managed by a high resolution stereolitography machine, also called 3d printer, make your own master out of it and start to produce resin parts for the MiG geeks around the world. I know there are companies that will do the print for a reasonable fee. What do you think? Cheers Davide

I think one model for which the only existing alternative is really bad is the Tu-22 Blinder, which was only issued by AMT-Esci and then reissued by Italeri and Revell with no modification. As for the Amt-Esci Tu-22M2/M3, bringing it to the right shape and dimensions involves a lot of work. A new tooling is surely needed, and I think it would sell as the Tu-160 and Tu-22. Davide

To answer your question, the Zvezda/Dragon/Italeri kit has more of a general shape issue. I think the best analysis has been done by this guy: http://www.xs4all.nl/~robdebie/models/su24.htm as highlighted in this post http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index....t&p=1938628 Basically, the fuselage is too high by about 2 millimetrs, and this alters the overall appearance of the aircraft, which looks even more "boxy" than it already is. Davide

Very nicely done Ian! The decaling must have been an awful lot of work to complete. It would be good to see more images also! Cheers Davide

Thank you, Sebastijan, you're too kind. I have been trying to be nice to this kit, but I have to say a few things. Pros: as said previuosly, the parts breakdown is clever, and makes for a sturdy and self-aligned model; panel lines are very delicate and thin: and more precise, I think, than Zvezda BUT Cons: the fit is between OK to poor or very poor in places; the shape resembles a MiG-31, but the separate nose cone creates a discontinuity of the nose lines when viewed from the side; the cockpit transparencies create an odd, overly high shape, again when viewed from the side; the exha

Very neatly done! Really nice. Cheers Davide

It was a personal challenge: I am a veeeeery slow builder, my previous best performance was 9 months to complete a model... This is the result of my effort. Cheers Davide

I made a last (minimal) addition, the metal panel that join the two exhaust nozzles, which are missing from the kit, out of plastic sheet: and glued them to the nozzles, which were temporarily attached to the fuselage to get the alignment: I had previously done some weathering with a "sludge wash" of acrylic black over the enamel, the result is not so great: the panel lines are so thin that they don't retain any paint when the wash is cleaned out. I also applied the few decals, over a local spot of future to avoid silvering: I might even succeed to meet the deadline! Cheers D

You should ask Wolfpack Design, for example: I have their F/A-18E/F Flap down set for Hasegawa 1/72 (box WP72008) and it doesn't take a CSI analyst to see that it is exactly the Hasegawa wing with flaps removed and molded separately and slats removed and re-attached in the angled position. Even the mounting tabs to the fuselage and for the wingtip Sidewiders are left untouched. If they have not been sued by Hasegawa..... Cheers Davide

Masked the antennas and radome, and painted the anti-glare areas (using Model Master 1593, which is a brownish black) And then masked the black areas, sprayed the light gray (Humbrol 127), and removed the masks (except transparents): And as soon as I had finished cleaning the airbrush.... AAAAAAGH, a real beginner's mistake: I had left aside the other parts (stabilators, landing gear doors etc:) DAMN. Although it is barely noticeable in this picture, there is a hint of how fine are the panel lines, which are almost invisible on the bare plastic: Cheers Davide

See how the F-35 EOTS (which should also perform the IRST function with multiple sensor, not an optronic ball), is going to loog like: More on the EOTS functions in this video: Cheers Davide

Painted the radome and the other dielectrics Humbrol 27, and the canopies Model Master 2135 (to have the "painted internally" effect) I also tried to simulate the small fixed part of the stabilator with glued styrene: then thinned down with a sanding stick: Added the cannon (very poor representation): and then replaced the lower intake lips with sheet styrene, since the original were incompletely molded: I used the original part of the actuator, sanded and glued to the styrene part. Bye Davide

Really nice scheme! That's similar to one of the camos I'll have to do on one of my '72 MiG-21s! In the next 120 years I need to complete my collection of unbuilt models. Cheers Davide

Not a lot of progress last week: I've been almost always been away from home. So, just done with the sanding, I added the seats, masked the canopies and put them on. Next step painting That's all (folks)! Cheers Davide

I'll use the stock decal of this box, which are for a '31 of the 174 GIAP Monchegorsk, the one with the "Boris Safonov" signs on the intakes. You are right, maybe I'll do something to fix: although my main aim is to see how this kit looks when built and compare it with the Zvezda one. I have also bought (online) the "new" ICM kit, but instead of the revised and corrected Zvezda I have got another copy of this same kit I'm building..... damn.

Intakes added and a lot of spots puttied... This area on both sides of the aircraft is particularly nasty... as if someone had "carved" a panel: I had to fill it with multiple layers of putty. .... and after sanding: Another difficult area: although you can notice a detail missing in the Zvezda ki: the small, narrow fixed part of the stabilator on the side of the fuselage. Next step will be adding seats, closing the canopy and painting. bye Davide

As Flyingraptor has rightly imagined, I'm not going to spend a lot for aftermarket.. and the Pavla seats are OK and will look the part: especially when the canopy will be closed! I have done a bit of progress (intakes, nosecone and puttying), will post photos over the weekend. Davide

Thanks for the encouragement, but wait to see the end result! (If ever I manage to meet the deadline....) :D The only improvement I'll make will be two Pavla K-36 seats. And putting red covers on the intakes and exhausts, it would take ages just to fix those. Davide

I don't dare to show the cockpit to the real modelers in this forum: it's non-existent. Let's say I'm using this OOB build as a trainer for when I'll build a real MiG-31... The MiG-21 is the one I should have finished for the Wings of the Red Star group build: it's there just for size comparison The panel lines of this kit are very nice, and the breakdown of parts is clever (in principle): but the fit is not so good. Davide

Here's the beginning of my effort. The kit is the old mold ICM, reboxed by MAC Distribution Davide

I decided both were too complicated to build decently without a lot of work, so I switched to an ICM (old mold) MiG-31. I started quite quickly, so I might even happen NOT to f**k up the deadline, who knows! Davide