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" Сами не летаем – другим не дадим." ["Don't fly – don't let anyone else."] -- Unofficial motto of the Войска ПВО СССР, Soviet Voyska-PVO -- the branch of the armed forces which operated interceptors and SAMs for home defense. "The Soviet estimate of their own effectiveness against high altitude penetrators must have been high... planning factors for the probability-of-kill of SA-2s (given launch inside engagement parameters) were 0.8. Similarly, the handbook probability-of-kill of the air-to-air missiles on Victor Belenko's MiG-25 was 0.86. These are end-game probabilities of kill in Western analytic jargon. If the PVO command and control system could enforce at least two end-game engagements for each penetrator, the bomber attrition would have been estimated as above 0.95." -- "SOVIET STRATEGIC AIR DEFENSE: A LONG PAST AND AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE", James T. Quinlivan, RAND Corporation, September 1989 "The other attack option available to pilots was ramming- -a much celebrated tactic used in the Great Patriotic War and even in modern conditions. "Given the high value of a nuclear -armed strategic bomber this tactic presents a good trade-off and has been explicitly endorsed in the VPVOS press, but ramming requires flying skill at least as great as that for gun attacks and would be unlikely to greatly increase VPVOS effectiveness. "The conclusion of most Western analysts is that the VPVOS did not present a very effective defense against low altitude penetration during the 1960s and 1970s." -- John William Rix Lepingwell, Organizational and bureaucratic politics in Soviet defense decisionmaking: a case study of the Soviet air defense forces, MIT PhD Thesis, c.1988 I was going to do a joint Spitfire build with Cookie after I finished the Hunter, but we're both a bit worn down at the moment, and I wanted to wait until happier times to build my favourite aeroplane. The Yak-28P is probably one of the less well-known Soviet aircraft of the Cold War. It was never exported, never served overseas (unlike the Su-15 -- which used the same radar and missiles -- a few of which were apparently briefly stationed in Egypt during the War of Attrition), and labored more or less in obscurity as part of the PVO (in the USSR, the air defence command was an entirely seperate and independent service from the VVS, the tactical air force) covering lower-priority sectors of the vast Soviet Union against the possibility of NATO intruders. It was phased out around the same time as I was born in 1983, which seems more recent than it actually is. I probably wouldn't know anything about it if there wasn't a two-page full-colour spread of it and the paltry selection of stores it could carry in Bill Gunston's Modern Warplanes book, which I must have first seen in 1988 or 1989. I thought it looked incredibly unlike any NATO plane (my favourite at the time, by the way, was the hapless Tornado F.2), and spectacularly Russian. Of course, now I know it's a rather old-timey-looking design for the late 1950s from whence it sprang (it and the F-4 Phantom are contemporaries), but despite its vague resemblance to an Me 262, there's just a bit of muchness to it: the nose is too long, the wings too swept, the whole thing too pointy. I dig it. When I got back into modelling in 2011, I happened upon a secondhand kit of it in a local hobby shop and bought it immediately, only to discover it lacked a radome, which pyro-maniac kindly sent me. I then read that it was a bit of a tough build and left it at that, until now. [fanfare] 20161006_214424 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20161006_214430 by Edward IX, on Flickr Hmmm, "prefer quality". Well, I like to think I do. I like my models like I like my women, beautiful surface detail, expensive, and locked up safely in the basement. And look, only three steps, basically, and then it's all together! 20161006_214418 by Edward IX, on Flickr Sprues don't look too bad. Low parts count is good. 20161006_214442 by Edward IX, on Flickr what the butt 20161006_214457 by Edward IX, on Flickr This should be a hole. 20161006_215101 by Edward IX, on Flickr "Intriguing" fit. 20161006_215818 by Edward IX, on Flickr I've started the cockpit tub: 20161006_225434 by Edward IX, on Flickr From what I know of Sovjets, they didn't start getting their delightfully hideous vomit green cockpit interiors until the late 1960s, so this aircraft should have a restrained light grey with black instrumentation. A three-part nosewheel bay, which I then have to capture between the fuselage halves! Oh, Amodel, you spoil me. 20161006_225430 by Edward IX, on Flickr