It took a while to figure out which plane this was, as it was another "freebie" plane kit models, made in Russia, given to me by an old mate. The other model kits in this same series at least had the names on the box (Yak 6, Yak 3) but this one didn't. The Russian writing you can see here says "Index 204, Scale 1:72). Inside the box, I found nothing else like a name, after half an hour spent on Google Translate, typing in the Russian letters using Google Translate's online Russian Keyboard. I now know it was made in the USSR by the Moscow Toy Works.
I went searching for what it might be, online. Nothing Russian. Nothing American. Nothing Italian or Swedish. Then it occured to me that it looked a bit familiar. It WAS! I had seen one in the flesh only a few months ago, at the Illawarra Air Museum about 100km south of home. It was a Hawker Hunter.
The trouble was the box artwork was so dodgy and inaccurate, with its too-short nose, that I didn't think it was a Hawker Hunter. Then I looked inside the box.
A much longer nose! So it IS a Hawker Hunter.
Here's a reference photo of the real thing that I used to ID the plane. The model kit has all the right details: the air intakes where the wing meets the fuselage, the tail shape, the cockpit position. Everything. And so, being a perverse fan of creating silk purses out of Russian sow's ears, I am going to build this thing next.
Typical Soviet era kit, it's super simple, very rough around the edges but it can be sanded, whittled, filled, sanded and coaxed into respectability. It doesn't come with any decals, so I'll go online to find some, or maybe even have a go at making my own, as I have bought some decal paper for my colour laser jet printer. Wish me luck!