BIG Russian Jet Groupie GB

LOL Texgunner yes the Russians like to keep the ship hangers clean by putting up giant tiles, cleanliness is next to godliness like they say lol!!

Thanks Dre, glad you guys like it. I will get more pics another time with a good camera and you will be able to see the detail more clearly.

Ha ha thanks that if I remember is a KH23 Kitchen missile, it is so fast we are talking mach 5 at sea level, it's basically unstoppable, when I was in the Navy I had to learn all about the weapons on Soviet ships, there is no RADAR powerful enough to track it, it's too quick. These are also carried on Sovremenny class cruisers.

Fantacmet- nice and clean, I like it!

Dean27-  Good looking ship-killer.  

That's a good looking MiG!   Navalized no less.   I love how those Russians tile their hanger decks.  Well done indeed!

Interesting...what's that BIG missile slung under the wing?

PS:  you can put more than one pic in a post...just sayin'...

MF just gives the designation of the MIG having been modernised with a newer engine and upgraded avionics.

Nice a white MIG21 also it's an MF the easiest way to tell the difference is the PF had a single piece canopy.

Well I'm ALMOST done with my MiG, then I will get to proceed on with my Flanker.  I have literally just a few parts to paint and add on and then this MiG will be done.  I can't remember if this is the MF or the PF, but in my mind it's the "MF" if you know what I mean.  The wing fits this time around have been ok, but the spine this time around didn't fit, the steps are as good as I've ever gotten, but the paint, well.............................  I've rarely had a paint job screw up this badly.  I'm just gonna weather the living wee out of it I think and call it good.  My skills have not gotten to the point to be capable of stripping paint off a kit this far along and be able to save it.  So here are the progress photo's so far, I don't know if it's me or what, but I see flaws in the coverage of the paint from the bottom up close but not in the camera shots.  Can't figure it out.  It's not due to resolution of the camera either, it's a Canon T2i, which is a pretty darn good camera to say the least.  Either that or I'm a better photographer then I gave myself credit for.  Yeah I think we'll go with that.  LOL  'Nuff ramblin here are the almost done progress pics.

Yes I did take a little bit of artistic license in some of the colors but I'm happy how it turned out.

I guess it beats applying too much glue and filler

Wait, what?   Are you applying common sense to this hobby?

I'm slowly learning the benefit of dry fitting, and modifying the kit parts PRIOR to gluing them in place. My MO had always been to glue it, despite the fit, and fill/sand after words. However, I'm seeing that if I can shape the part better when it isn't attached, it will reduce the amount of work I must put into it after gluing it down. I did that for the ventral air brake on the MiG-21and the other main landing gear door (the one I hadn't glued down yet in the picture above). We'll see how it goes.

I think that they're IFF's, but they could be something else entirely!   I think (again) that static wicks are found on the outermost trailing edge of the main wings and stabs of more modern Russian aircraft (at least the ones in my stash have them in those locations).

Impatience is a kit-killer, no doubt about that.   That MiG of mine was actually a fast build for me, but it was also a fairly simple kit with good alignment throughout.  There was a minimum of filling and sanding and most of that was the tail section join to the rest of the fuselage...  lots of wet sanding was done there.  

Dre, yes, it isn't the best naturally fitting kit ever. Often times I wonder whether it is the kit that has fit problems or if its just my lack of skill at correcting the problems that is the issue...In the past I've been to impatient at correcting deficiencies in kits and the finished product is marred by gaps, and seams or sloppy filling/sanding. I'm trying to change that mind set...its not a race.

So far I've been lucky with those little antennae (didn't even know what they were so thanks for that!) There are several more on the tail, which I thought might represent static dischargers but again, I don't know. I've never been lucky with keeping those sorts of things attached through out the span of a build so I might take your advice...

Oddmanrush, that kit looks like a seam-machine...  how long until you break off those 3 IFF antennae on the nose?   Mine lasted a while, but I wound up shaving them off and drilling pilot holes so I could use thin stock rod to recreate them as the last step.

Yeah, I can't figure that part out at the moment. Does the new format of the forum change how pics are posted? I've been copy/pasting the IMG code straight from Photobucket like I used to without an issue before, but now its posting links. I'll have to keep playing around with it unless some one has some insight.

Pics instead of hot-links would be nice...

A lot of good work here that makes my stuff seem fairly elementary....

I've made a little progress. Took a lot of time over the evening yesterday to fill some gaps and seems. I'm going to be modeling this MiG-21 with the gear up.

I closed the nose gear doors. The kit supposedly allows for such a configuration but there were lots of gaps so I had to fill some holes. I cut a piece of playing card out and placed it inside the well to give a foundation for the kit doors to sit. Then I filled the seems and sanded it flush. Looks pretty good to me.

As for the main gear doors, there will be some work to do to make them look right. You can see they don't fit as well as I'd like.

EDIT: Figured it out, gotta insert the Direct Link into the Insert Image tool...nice. Way to make things more complicated....

Ah yes well also remember to use oodles of glue when you get the nose at the correct angle and wait for it to dry before applying any filler. I also waited for the filler to dry, sanded then as the filler appears porous I put more superglue on it once I was happy with the shape then sanded the superglue after  a day then I had a super smooth and strong finish. Alternatively Zacto models do a replacement nose that apparently drops right in with no fuss.

Dean27, I used the resin because I can't replicate that level of detail by scratchbuilding... there's switches on the panels and all sorts of superfine stuff.   It's the best resin set I've seen.

If you scroll up a few posts you'll find where I explained the nose problem, but reading your fix gives hope that something works.   I'll look at it later tonight and see what's what...

Hi Dre is that a resin cockpit for the SU25? It looks simply brilliant! I am hoping to be able to get as precise at that with detail, but I usually scratchbuild the extra detail, normally because I can't afford the resin extras lol, but I am thinking of getting a cockpit set for the 1/32 Tornado ECR and making it a 1991 GR1 all dirtied up from the war. Also the Frogfoot is on my list of kits to buy. So you say its good? Also what exactly is the issue with the nose on your flanker? I remember the nose on mine didnt fit great so I got a plastic card and rolled it to a cylinder shape and inserted it into the nose and fuselage then left an approx 1cm gap and put a TON of filler and let it dry for days and then sanded it to shape, the whole process took days if I remember but it worked.

Dre

LOL, I've got two of the 1/32 Flankers sitting behind me right now in various states of unfinished...

The nose cone fit on the B has had me stymied for months as I just can't think up a fix for it- either I reshape the cone with heat (scary thought) or I pack it full of milliput and start grinding and sanding it down to match the fuselage contours.  Otherwise, that bird is ready for painting.   The C got sidetracked by some other GB entries (Frogfoot and MiG-21).   I've got several Linden Hill and Begemot decal packages for each if I ever get back to them.

If you haven't tried one, look into Trumpeter's 1/32 Su-25UB as it's a fantastic kit with excellent details all the around and there's a kick-ass resin cockpit set for it as well as PE.  I've spent as much time on painting the Frogfoot's cockpit as I have spent on the entire MiG-21 project.

This is my main contest entry and has been getting all my love for a couple of months now... two weeks to finish it.

Man, that cockpit looks great Dre!  It looks like ya climb right in and buckle down.  Wow.

Gary

Pics would be nice...

It's something that doesn't photograph well because I don't have enough hands to hold everything in place and the camera-- it is about 2mm too tall and about the same amount too narrow.  Obviously pinching it makes it fit but there's too little surface contact between it and the fuselage that I can't get a good weld that holds the correct shape.  I've tried a backing plate and interior bracing to make it stay but no joy.  

I figure that packing it full of putty should let me shape it in a more predictable way than trying to squeeze it with heat.

it's probably an easy fix once I get to it

So what's the skinny on the ill-filling Flanker nose-cone?  Pics would be nice...