ya-gabor

Well this is good news for some but not for me, since I had my kit at a airshow and not from a distributor, so I will have to make my own conversions parts from resin for it as well as a decal sheet with Hungarian markings. . . :) Best regards Gabor

I was planing to add these stencils to the Hungarian AF MiG-21 bis decal sheet but in the end decided not to since they are present on the original Eduard sheet. Sorry! I will have a look if I have a spare set but I think it will be a bit costly to send it over the big water from Hungary to Canada . . . Best regards Gabor

Yes, I fully agree with you. There is a propaganda machine in all states (they dont have to be communist or capitalist) which wants to show only the bright side of the story (and add a little to it) but there are millitary records which is very different! The book on the Vietnam war was based on such an official record of events, it had extracts from the official records without any editors comments to the actions that took place in the skys. As I said you have the right not to believe in them, I know the sources so I tend to believe them even though I was not there myself. As for Afganistan

Not only the DUA in the way but I am sure you have disconnected a lot of other things too. We will have a Capitalist Saturday or subotnica (The Capitalist Saturday name has been baned by our military leaders , are we now a socilist state and it is becouse of this??? I dont really know now :wacko: ) in a few weeks time and it could be a good idea to see if we can open our MiG-23MF. I am not sure if the idea would be appreciated since we have a separate Saphir radar and apart from looking at it there is not much more reason why to open the nose. . . I know that at Papa AFB when the nose was

There are always two sides to a coin. One is more authentic. It was interesting to translate for Squadron Signal a book on the Vietnam air war from a Hungarian author who has visited Vietnam several times (and spent more that a decade researching the conflict) and got hold of official reports from the air activities by the Vietnamese Air Force. The story of that war is not as much "one sided" as it has been reported earlier by "authentic" Western and USAF sources. Same goes for Korea, fortunately now most Russian documentations on that conflict are also available and the kill / loss ratio is a

In the heat of the battle with MLD's!? Gabor

Floggerman, We did not have ML's so I can only speak for MF's and what is available on the ML/MLD/P series. From modeling point of view the empty weight of the real aircraft would not make much difference, but the different looking undercariage certainly is interesting. Will you have again a "Subotnica" in the museum? It would be interesting to see comparison photos of the same area on the MF and the ML to illustrate your point. Last time around when you tried to remove the nosearea of the MF, did you take out the DUA-3 on top of the nose? It gets in the way when you try to slide the nose fo

One Pakistani F-16 was lost in an encounter with Russian MLDs but as far as its know not to Russian attack but a "strange coincidence". The Russians returned to base with full load of missiles. It could have been a Sidewinder of his wingman or a stray bomb from one of the Russian bombers. The MLD's were a fighter escort to a group of "bomber" MiG-23's or Su-25's (I dont remember). There are detailed accounts of this story in many Russian publications with date and names. There is also an account of an encounter when the Russians had a clear lock on but did not receive authorization for AAM lau

If you are asking about the three warnign / maintenance rectangle stencils on the rear part of the canopy then I think you will find them in the Eduard kit. Also in the detail set and the Brassin cockpit set they are present as prepainted etchings. I would say this is a bit too much, since a decal would perfectly represent the original. I just hope you are not asking about the individual instrument stencils (of which there are hundreds in the cockpit) as I dont think anyone would even consider doing them, even in 32nd scale! :D Best regards Gabor

Nice photos Berkut! I was lucky to spend half a day in that museum back in 1999 when the aircraft were still aircraft. There are lots of interesting and unique aircraft there. 321 was also a test aircraft just as the MiG-23P (No. 37) with lots additional electronic antennaes! This is one of the last places where you can still see a real MiG-25P (No.38) as well as a MiG-25PDS. Of the first one there arent too many left! 710 is also a P version but it had a brand new experimental engine. Best regards Gabor

Based on the construction number this is one of the four MiG-25RB that was sent to Egypt on the Foxbats frist deployment outside the CCCP. Best regards Gabor

Had a little time to have a closer look at the kit. Here are a few things. It is supposed to be a MiG-23M /MF fuselage. * The panel lines around the TP-23 heat seaching head (in front of the nose gear) is more like the one on the ML series. For the M / MF there is only one “bump†on the right side, there is an addon just in front of the nose gear door and there should be two long strakes running parallel to flight direction on both sides of the TP-23 unit. This area shown on the kit is more similar to what one would see around the TP-26 unit of the ML/MLD/P versions. * Right nex

One of the main airframe differences apart form a new engine and a smaller fin is the removal of the No. 4 fuel tank in the back of the airframe. On some Russian forum an ex pilot who flew both the M and the ML series commented that even though the new engine was using less fuel than the R-29 of the M series the aircraft still had a far smaller radius of service mainly due to the absence of that 4th fuel tank. This tank did make the M series a tail sitter. But as far as I know there were also changes to the main gear too apart from the obviously different nose gear. Best regards Gabor

The original Trump photos released months ago of the first sprues there were two fuselage sprues show. Very few did notice that the two fuselages are different, one was for the M (which we already have in our hands) and the other for the ML/MLD/P version! Apart from the brand new fuselage, new fin, new nose cone, new undercarriage, new front wheels, new armament, new engine, yes there is not much difference between the two versions! :D Best regards Gabor

Hi Jeff, It's not about popularity but about what I like. For me 72nd is managable, but I also do some 48th and even have a few old Hase 32nd. Still I prefer for myself 72nd which would not mean that I think, and will make a statement that: 72nd is the most popular! Everyone should do what they like. Best regards Gabor

Hi jonbryon, Sorry to hear this. I did not go into details on that kit, but still it is the only kit in 48th scale and as I said the critical voices about inaccuracies, mistakes on the kit are less that a fraction of a % from the companies sales. So I dont really think they take too much notice of it. This was the only kit in this scale so most of the people like you and me also went out to get one or two examples of it. So did I buy the Academy Mig-21 kits or the ESCI MiG-23 all those years back. As always one particular example should be looked at when making your kit, looking at reference

The Trump MiG-23 kit has lots of stupid mistakes on it but it is far better than what they did for instance with the Su-15 kits. Both the depth of the engraved lines, rivets and the overall feel of the kit. Comparing it to the real aircraft (Su-15) shows some fascinating things. The different panels are there where they should be, well approximately. Yes they had a look at how many service panels should be but they lost out on the shape of the panels and someone was given the job of adding rivets to these panels. All the panels had fasteneres at equal spacing, which is not true of the real air

Speak for yourself!!! 48th is OK but still prefer 72nd! Best regards Gabor

If I remember right Trump was SHOWN what is wrong with the 32nd scale kit, so they had time before the release of the 48th version to do some changes, corrections. It seems that all the comments went unheard in Trumpeter HQ and a choice was made to produce the new kit as a downgrade / downscale of the 32nd. If they do business this way then I am not sure about them in 15 years time. But as Jennings said it has no relevance to the MiG-23M kit that we have today. There is a certain arrogance in producers where they think that they know all but still dictated by business interests and commitments

Yepp, I was asking the same question a few pages ago. There is no indication of any sort that there should be 2 pieces of those sprues. Apart from logic!!! The only place where mention is made of it is when they say "Make two" on page 13 of the instruction for the R-23 and R-24 AAM's. Even there they DONT say Make two for the APU-23M pylon. So this is just an indirect hint that there should be two of them. For the R-60 missiles and the APU-6o II double rail on page 15 there is only indirect evidence that there should be 4 R-60 missiles included in the kit. Yesterday my friend Pali had his 32

Well, please have a closer look. :blink: It is the Trump kit nose section! I dont remember having A4 part number and Trump kit ID code on left side of the fuselage nose on the ESCI kit. The plastic is new, as to the resin . . . Best regards Gabor

On the Russian site scalemodel.ru Nazar said that it is the same set as the one NeOmega made for the ESCI kit with (or with out) modifications. It is true that the plastic parts shown on the NeOmega photo are from the Trump kit. Best regards Gabor

This is good news for some :) I dont think for me and many others :( . I had bought my at an airshow over the weekend and it came from some German distributor. I will lieve it as it is. Will have to make a correct APU-23 anyway or to be more precise two of them and they should be mirror images of each other, so a replacement sprue would not do much just increase the sparebox content. As to the R-60 AAM, it is wrong in shape so will have to look in the same sparebox. I would be more concerned with some serious and some silly mistakes in the kit than the missing sprues. Best regards Gabor

This is interesting, so the Chinese think that you will need only one of this sprue for the M /MF kit and two for the ML/MLD kits!? That is an intersting approach ( and research ). Best regards Gabor

Back in the good old days (late 1970's) I was waiting for the release of the ESCI MiG-23 kit and visited the local SeaGull Models shop at the end of Exhibition road in London every day to see when they get the first kit. Even then there were reviews of kits in different modelling publications and lots of modellers had their own collection of aircraft publications, photos used as a reference. It was evident that there are problems with the kit, both shape and dimensions but still IT WAS THE ONLY KIT OF THE MIG-23 AROUND!!!!! Now more than 30 years later the Trumpeter kit IS THE ONLY ONE AROUND