Su-25 Past & Present

[ya-gabor]

Su-25 past and present

 

The Past

Back in the 1970’s-80’s one was able to subscribe to foreign publications in Hungary through one office of a print distribution company. The price was minimal for East block publications and a little higher for Western. I had Air International and many eastern monthlies arrive in a plain brown envelop. Well it depended on the good will of the postman, sometimes he thought that a given magazine is of more interest to him, so in this cases it went “strangely missing”. But the distributor was kind enough and replaced the missing publications.

In September 1985 the scheduled Czech Letectvi + Kosmonautika arrived in the post box. WOW. Remember the year was 1985, the Su-25 was still in its infancy, in Afganistan the early test examples were operational, and the Czechoslovak AF had them brand new for little more than a year. And there on the cover and back cover of L+K was a flight of 4 Frogfoot’s and on the back a perfect colour image / side view of 5039 in flight! Simply amazing! There was also an article about the aircraft and superb photos by Vaclav Jukl. Very little was known of the Su-25 before hand and most certainly few if at all high quality images were ever published. So much so that few years later I did get into serious problems for possession of this Czech magazine!!!

 

Those who had the publication treasured it, those who did not, asked for reproduction of the pictures in traditional photographic way. I made a few for friends at the local modelling club.

Sometime later the news went around that two of our club members were arrested for spying and all the things they had at home related to aviation was confiscated and scrutinized in detail by the secret police. They did find the photos of the Su-25 which at the time in Hungarian rule books was one of the most secret airplanes of WarPac countries. (Probably not only due to Russian influence but also since at one time there was a plan to acquire a squadron of the Su-25 for Hungarian AF) The alleged spy’s told the investigators that the photo was from me. So I was also asked about it. Where did you get the photos?????? I pulled out the September 1985 issue of L+K and shown it to them. They did not believe their eyes. How is it possible that the Czech publish photos of the top secret Su-25 while on our side of the border one can get into serious trouble for possession of them. Anyway charges were dropped against me.

 

But my interest with the Su-25 remained or was even higher than before. Back in those days there was little that one could watch on TV but apart from the local channels we also had some from our Eastern neighbours also. It was by accident that one day I stumbled on a Czech program called Azimut (I think it was Azimut but 100% that it was by Cescoslovenska Televize Praha, “Let Zacina Na Zemi”) which had a longer report from deployment of Su-25’s to a forward base and doing live missile launch, bomb dropping and gun firing. This was the second WOW.

 

Superb close ups of most details and of course I recorded it all on VHS. Still have that cassette! Made yesterday few “Screen Shoots” in traditional way, Digital camera in front of the TV set playing the VHS tape (sorry the VHS tapes are not digitalized to make better quality stills from them). Back in those days the tape was played thousands of times to get all the details I needed. I know today it is laughable, but in late 1980’s there was no other way.

 

Here is that legendary L+K.

 

 

 

This is the Czechoslovak TV program and my high quality stills from it made yesterday.  : )   : )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best regards

Gabor

[ALF18]

Cool story. I remember my fighter pilot training in Canada around the same time (1985 to 1987). We had lots of classified pictures of multiple Soviet-bloc aircraft, including the Frogfoot. We could look at them all we wanted to in the Intelligence lock-up, but could not put them up on the walls - all we had on unclassified walls were silhouettes (3-view drawings) to help memorize the shapes. I don't remember if one of those 'classified' pics was from the open-source Czech magazine... lol

Looking forward to seeing this build.

ALF

[habu2]

I once had a web page dedicated to the A-12 Avenger (aka “flying dorito”) which included detailed 3-view, cutaway and cockpit layout drawings. A couple of months after the page went live I had a visit from the Men In Black wanting to know my source for what they viewed as potentially classified information. I went over to my bookcase and retrieved an issue of Koku Fan and showed them the same drawings. They were not amused…..

[ya-gabor]

That is an interesting story there Habu 2!!!  : )  : )  It just shows that one can find idiots irrespective from ideological systems.

 

In our cases they were really surprised to find that it was an available magazine. Only because they don’t know that it existed does not mean that it does not exist!

 

 

Hi Alf18,

 

The title of the thread says what I want to do (hoep so). Show the past and present and the way I got there. I did build that 72nd scale kit back all those years ago (almost 35 years by now, hard even to write it down).

 

The other part is a look at the brand new 48th scale Zvezda kit. For the moment I don’t think I will build it, but simply there was no other topic where I could put it. It is a deeper look at the kit than what is acceptable in the news section, not really a build but still it belongs more here. And to keep with the theme of In Progress I show a little of what that old kit looked like. It was a fun build and something that I liked very much. Surely today would do many things differently but this was the last years of 1980’s. There is no time machine to go back and do it different and there would be little point in doing it! It was as good as it could be back then.

 

So sorry but it will not be a classical type of build stage by stage.  But will show this and that. So it could be interesting to drop in every now and then. 

 

Best regards

Gabor

[ya-gabor]

More and more information on details was available to me, now all I needed was a decent kit. (Back in late 1980’s a DECENT kit of the Su-25 ??? OK it is a joke, but at least a starting point was needed)

 

Well Hobby Craft did release a 72nd scale kit, but  . . .  It was more a fiction than an accurate plastic kit. Nothing else was available so I had to get it.

To cut the long story short the kit was used to build a replica of the Frogfoot in the next few years. Little of the original plastic survived the work over and corrections, a canopy was heat formed (not really vac-form but more pulling a sheet of heated plastic over a former), Tim Perry from PP Models helped to make photoetch details which I prepared before. Tibor Sinka printed decals which were previously drawn with ink.

 

 

 

Photos of the build back in late 1980's.

 

 

& the result of the build

 

 

 

 

 

It was a long build which mainly concentrated on doing a proper cockpit. A master was made for the K-36L ejection seat and copies produced in resin. Many details had to be scratch built from zero, like the nose wheel leg and that unique mud guard.

 

It was a lot of work but I loved every minute of it. The kit was entered in our national competition in 1990.

 

The kit now is in longterm storage along with some others in custom built wooden boxes. 

 

 

Best regards

Gabor

[habu2]

I had that Hobbycraft kit. 👎 Never finished it, instead used it as a practice paint target. 

[Inquisitor]

I have a story related to idiots in the government and military secrets. In my country of Pejejistan, over 15 years ago members of the current political party in power tried to pass a law banning scale models and toys related to military and emergency response vehicles. Their argument was that scales models were so accurate and probably contained secrets and weaknesses of them that organized crime, drug traffickers and terrorist would easily acquire then to study such vehicles in detail and plan strategies to attack against those used by the government back then 🙄 Yeah right, like your husk of plastic would tell you the thickness of armor or its properties against munitions or explosives, or the shape, size and other specs of the engine inside... A few modeling clubs invited them to talk about it in a couple of radio programs and showed how idiotic they were.

Edited April 10, 2022 by Inquisitor

[Pal]

Szia Gábor!

 

Very nostalgic! 🤗

I remember this kit and noted well at that time how precisely the kit was built but especially how nicely the cockpit was depicted. All the tiny tumbler switches and moreover all in 1:72. It was jaw dropping…

Good to see that you preserved it with other kits. You might want to take it out from the box just to take a few photos to share? 😉 Because we are still at the “Past” chapter…

Take care! 

[janman]

Nice stories, Gabor! 

 

Excellent model!

[DarkKnight]

On 4/9/2022 at 10:28 AM, habu2 said:

I once had a web page dedicated to the A-12 Avenger (aka “flying dorito”) which included detailed 3-view, cutaway and cockpit layout drawings. A couple of months after the page went live I had a visit from the Men In Black wanting to know my source for what they viewed as potentially classified information. I went over to my bookcase and retrieved an issue of Koku Fan and showed them the same drawings. They were not amused…..

 

 

this is absolutely hilarious 

[habu2]

21 hours ago, DarkKnight said:

 

 

this is absolutely hilarious 

 

It still exists on an obscure web archive page....

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20080128181425fw_/http://www.habu2.net/a12/avenger2.htm

 

My html editor was Windows Notepad....

[Dave Williams]

I’m confused by this thread.  It’s it the in progress section, has a tag that includes “zvezda 48th”, but don’t see anything related to the new 1/48 Su-25 kit.  What am I missing?

[ya-gabor]

On 4/18/2022 at 11:27 PM, Dave Williams said:

I’m confused by this thread.  It’s it the in progress section, has a tag that includes “zvezda 48th”, but don’t see anything related to the new 1/48 Su-25 kit.  What am I missing?

 

Hi Dave,

 

You are in the right place. It is only a question of time. The above story on that 72nd scale kit from the past was just part of my so to say "relation" to the Frogfoot. I have made a lot of photos in the past days of the new kit, but it all takes time, and I have very little of it. : (  : (

Also we have the big modelling show this weekend at Moson so it will take some time before I can write up all the things I want.

 

Actually this will not be a traditional build, but more a review of the new kit as I dont have time to do a full build. But I did some work on the kit. 

 

So please give me a little time.

 

p.s. the story by habu2 is fascinating and it adds a bit of flavour to this all that I like!

 

Best regards

Gabor 

[habu2]

31 minutes ago, ya-gabor said:

 

p.s. the story by habu2 is fascinating and it adds a bit of flavour to this all that I like!

 

 

I have more "MIB" stories but don't want to detract from this thread.....  👍

[Aigore]

So much wisdom in one place! Awesome!