Mig-23 MLA 1/32 trumpeter (red-39)

The main wheels were replicated from a Revell MiG 29A wheel copy heavily modified

from left to right:
1. wheel trumpeter
2. wheel Revell
3. wheel modified Revell
4. wheel finals

For the tires a 1:48th Hasegawa F-4 Phantom main wheel was used, with the hub removed.

The kit has the rubber that is beautifully detailed but sadly are too thick. The hub has shallow details for the front, while the main ones are fictitious.
They had to be replaced.
The front wheels: to the left is the accurate version of the hub as opposed to what is provided in the kit. The shallow details of the kit were improved by making the necessary cutouts in one hub and overlapping them over another that was left as is. A styrene circle was then added.

For the correct ground stance the front landing leg in 1:32nd should extend to 42 millimeters from the bottom of the fuselage (as opposed to 47 provided by the kit), while the lowest point of the burner can should be at 26 millimeters from the ground. The legs as provided in the kit are in the extended position as if the aircraft would be airborne, coming in for a landing.

Family MiG 23 is the most complex landing on aircraft of all timpurile.Kit does not miserably in rendering this complexity and all angles are wrong. In ML gear front is too wide, so soil orientation is nothing like it should be (MF version is even worse). had to address the problems and I finished rebuilding the entire assembly from the wheels up.
You can see here I built a simple bracket, which shows how the aircraft should stand their ground.

add thick, triangular sections of styrene:

Yet another thing that the Trumpeter guys have done wrong is the shape of the jet intakes, symmetrical, when the top corner should have been more rounded...

No big deal really, cut offending pieces:

The cockpit canopy now follows the fuselage spine outline instead of bulging out. It took a lot of filing to achieve this and then the lower frame had to be reconstructed with white styrene.

The gear bays were first painted with a gloss enamel, mixed to match the Russian colors. The wires were done with Vallejo Model Color and sealed with Future. Flat acrylic paint, a combination of 95% grey (60% black + 40% white) and brown 5% was gassed with the airbrush, and then wiped off. A finishing touch, the wash was a mixture of ocher and black pigments.

wheel bay Aires

Cockpit all done, ready to be installed in the front half of the fuselage 

riveting and engraving detail

reproduction cone:

We also took the opportunity to further strengthen the area, or by adding styrene ...

Compare it to his new cone, the one modified from the MiG 29. It makes a huge difference

Pinocchio nose had set. This is how it looked:

On the left you can see the original MiG 23 con, shortened and MiG 29 a dry fit half the fuselage.

Wow. That's some amazing detail painting.

Good to know, and thanks for the info!

MR.Dre

Consulting line drawings and multiple photographic references it is immediately apparent that the Trumpeter MiG 23 nose is much too pointy. A solution had to be found. Also in my stash there is a Trumpeter MiG 29, whose shape for its nose is wrong, but it is perfect for the MiG 23! If you want an accurate nose for the MiG 29, You should get one from ZactoModels. My solution was to make a resin copy of the Trumpeter MiG 29 radome to use in the MiG 23 build, while my Fulcrum will receive Zactoman's corection. Also in my stash there is a MiG 29 from Revell, from which some parts were copied and modified for the current build.

I'm following this with interest as I have the same kit in the stash...  

Great work so far- please do point out the various issues as you encounter them.

Thanks Greg!

That looks like an great skill to know for sure. Very nice work and thanks for sharing.

Thanks  Nathan!