Mfezi

Of course, and for each of these programs the differences between the initial technology demonstrator, the prototype of the production version, and the final production version all differed. The level of maturity at which the aircraft was introduced into service also differed. The different countries, companies and even programs all had different development philosophies, so there really is no perfect 1:1 comparison. For example, the Russian T-50/Su-57 didn't have a true separate technology demonstrator - they combined the whole development process into one - probably higher risk but slightly compressed development time. On the other end of the spectrum, the EAP and Eurofighter were separate programs very far removed from each other, which is why I also split them in my previous post. Nevertheless, my earlier post does illustrate the typical lengths of the overall development time of a modern fighter and the Russians are very much in the ballpark there - even on the fast side with the Su-57. As noted by "Doom3r", the Chinese seem to be even faster on a few of their latest programs, but a decade+ is pretty much the norm. We'll see when this "Checkmate" flies and how long it takes to get one into service from that point. It is likely that the "in service" part shouldn't be expected in this decade, but there are so many things that can affect it either way.

No argument with the overall sentiment, but just to point out that this is not bad at all for a modern fighter: T-50 first flight: 29 Jan 2010 Su-57 service introduction: 25 Dec 2020 That is just under 11 years X-35 first flight: 24 Oct 2000 F-35B service introduction (the first model to reach that status): 31 July 2015 A little under 15 years YF-22 first flight: 29 Sept 1990 F-22A service introduction: 15 Dec 2005 A bit over 15 years Rafale first flight: 4 July 1986 Introduction: 18 May 2001 Just under 15 years The Eurofighter was about 9 years from prototype to service introduction, but that is if you don't count the EAP which flew about 8 years before the Eurofighter prototype, so the overall programme was also around 17 years from first flight to service introduction.

Thanks for the links! I know what I'm going to watch tonight...

Thanks, Massimo. This is getting more and more interesting! Please post here if they send you any more information.

Thank you very much for that confirmation, Massimo! It is really great getting it directly from the person who did the restoration.

Kuznetsov's book on the Yak-7, "Як-7. Истребитель тотальной войны" was published in 2014...

Massimo, that may actually be correct. Go look at pictures of HMS victory - that colour appears anything from pink to yellow, depending on lighting. See this article: https://www.nmrn.org.uk/news-events/nmrn-blog/hms-victory-be-re-painted-battle-trafalgar-colours-after-210-years From the article: "The resulting colour has been something of a surprise – we actually expected the colour to be a creamy hue, what we have found is that Victory was painted in bands of graphite grey and a colour that ranges from a creamy-orange to almost salmon pink in certain lights; It’s a radical change in the ship’s appearance, and we’ll be interested to hear what visitors to the ship think of this historically accurate paint scheme.”

Jason, if the AKAN paint that you used was the acrylic and not the new acrylic lacquer, it probably WAS too dark - as the posts above show, it was not only me who noticed that trend. With mine, I found that I had to add almost 30% white to get those original acrylics to match their later acrylic lacquers. That does not only go for their AMT-7, but also AMT-11 and AMT-12. The colours themselves looked good - they were simply too dark. The resulting colours may still seem a little dark if you were used to the WEM paints, but in my opinion they look great on a model. You can lighten them more as part of your weathering process, but I usually keep my weathering quite subtle on Soviet WWII aircraft as they generally seemed to be in quite good condition in wartime photographs (unlike modern Russian jets, especially during the mid-90's and early 2000's).

I have the Russian-language book "Первый Як" (First Yak) by him which I read way back when I bought it - it must have been the late 90's or early 2000's. I wasn't aware that there was an English two-volume version available. I will certainly look out for it, especially if it includes updated drawings.

Thank you very much for that prompt response. It seems that both Kuznetsov and Yakubovich's books are worth having. As I said, I've read many of Yakubovich's Aviakollektsia booklets and I've got the Kuznetsov book on the Yak-7, which I will now move to the top of my to-read list a bit quicker. And finally, I've got to order myself one of those new Modelsvit Yak-9D's!

Yes, that looks very familiar😀

I think the interest was more in the drawings than the articles - but thanks for the heads-up on Sergey Moroz's text. On that topic, what is your opinion on the books authored by Nikolai Yakubovich? I have many of his Aviakollektsia booklets and noticed that he authored a book on the Yak-9 published by Eksmo. I have their Yak-7 book - authored by Kuznetsov, but I must admit that I haven't read it yet as it hasn't quite reached the top of my to-read pile.

Thank you for the clarification on the AMT-1. I suspected it was just a mistype, so no problem at all. What you write makes sense: The primer, possibly ALG-1 in this case, AMT-7 and then various other touchup colours over the years. I guess the mystery is then still what those two blues (one of them a greyer colour as you stated) might be. I think most of us don't care about the top coat - I obviously cannot speak for everyone, but all the comments that I have ever seen about this aircraft agreed that the eventual finish was a museum restoration and not actual AMT-7, so no-one that I know of used that top coat as any sort of reference to AMT-7. The more interesting one is the colour that was revealed when they sanded off the top coat - the darker, greyer blue colour. That is the colour that many believed to be more representative of AMT-7 and it certainly bears a similarity to various interpretations of that colour, including the chips that I made for myself from the AKAN paint range. It is very different from the old WEM interpretation of AMT-7, which I believe was developed with your assistance. For what it is worth, over the years I have built up quite a collection of different paints. My aim is of course not that of a colour researcher (I get enough of that in my full-time job in aerospace R&D) - I'm more interested in building models that look right to my eye and that I can at least substantiate within reason from a historical perspective. Nevertheless, I got the WEM paints, originally got the AKAN acrylics, later AKAN enamels and later their fantastic modern range of acrylic lacquers. I tend to make colour chips for myself and one thing that I did notice was that the AKAN interpretation of AMT-7 in the acrylic lacquer range came out noticeably lighter than their own original acrylic range. I know they had some production issues in the beginning, so I assume the acrylic lacquer is the closest to their intended colour. It is lighter than the earlier acrylic colour, but otherwise still the same colour and considerably greyer and darker than the WEM colours. It does look very similar to the higher quality pictures that I have seen of the Albom Nakrasok and, yes, it does bear a striking similarity to the darker of the blues on the bottom of this Yak-3 wing and along the lower part of the fuselage. I want to make it clear that I'm not here for an argument. I'm interested in how my models come out. That being said, I'm pretty fluent in Russian and I have read the whole series of M-Hobby articles written by Vakhlamov and Orlov, I've got an original copy of the later Aviakollektsia summary of their articles and I have many of the more recent Russian publications on Soviet WWII aircraft in my library. Of course, there are new evidence that come out from time to time, but there has been a fair amount of consistency in what has been published on the Russian side over the last 15 years or so, which is one of the reason why I eventually settled on and became quite comfortable with the AKAN paints for my own models.

That was my understanding also. The articles that accompanied them, written by Sergey Moroz, are also pretty good. Bogatov covered the Yak-9 first series (June), Yak-9D (July), Yak-9T (August) and Yak-9M (September) in his drawings.

AMT-1? On a Yak-3? Why? Looking at the pictures of the lower wing surfaces, there are clearly at least two blues visible. The lighter one was the top layer - assumed to be from a later restoration. The darker one revealed underneath is the colour that people assumed was AMT-7 and what you now say is not AMT-7. You say there is AMT-7, AMT-1? and Gris Bleu Claire in the mix (with ALG-1 on the bottom as the primer). But you earlier suggested that neither of the two visible blues is AMT-7. So what is the darker of the two visible blues on the lower surface? and why do you believe they used AMT-1 somewhere as one of the layers?