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Somalia - Trumpeter 1/72 Ilyushin Il-28


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Figured I'd go ahead and start this thread even though the kit won't be arriving until Tuesday.

I've noticed all of the resin aftermarket parts for the Il-28 are for the Italeri kit, but I had ordered the Trumpeter kit already and it was cheap enough that I'm not worried about super-detailing. The markings will be from a NOS ESCI 1/72 sheet of Sudan (pre-60s), Somalia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and Cuba "national insignias" (roundels and flag tail markings).

Now on to the other issues - every Il-28 kit in existence, from what I've read, is problematic. I think I'll be able to build it successfully, but references on this aircraft are fairly poor from what I've seen. The main discussions are about the Soviet version or the Chinese Harbin H-5, and most pictures are either Soviet or Polish. The Trumpeter kit comes with decals and a painting guide for the PLAAF, and I believe the VPAF, which is a green upper and grey lower surfaces scheme. I honestly think the only difference between the Il-28 kit and the Harbin H-5 kit is the box art. This is definitely not the scheme of the Somali Air Force in the 1970s. Every other operator seems to run either NMF or a grey scheme.

113995-11185-93.jpg

This Romanian example is pretty wild -

H-5310%5B1%5D.jpg

Which leads to the main issue - I have no references for how to paint this aircraft at all. I can apply the markings without much difficulty (excluding the serial number), but roundels and tail markings are pretty much universal in their placement.

I have found this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftofj4wsFvY - but it's of very poor quality and does not appear to show any Il-28s. I have been unable to find a single photo of a Somali example so far. If Mr. Cooper has any input on this (I know it's not a MiG or Sukhoi, though), I would be most grateful.

The only other images I found besides pictures of Soviet Bloc examples were these hand drawings of the cockpit and navigator's position.

4CKmtLE.jpg

ViQmWni.jpg

Any ideas? I'm thinking they probably flew them as they were painted on delivery, which would be the Soviet scheme (right?). I'm a little hesitant to try doing NMF on my second aircraft. I feel like I need a lot more practice before I try that. Likely to end up a neutral grey underside with a darker gloss grey upper surface. I feel like I've seen Polish examples of that. Still, painting is a long, long way off.

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I also can't seem to find any pics online.

I would think they would be painted like their Migs. Tan with green uppers and light blue undersides but they could have been left in NMF for all I know.

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**EDIT: Well, it looks like I've hit a patch of luck (which is rare enough for me). According to this thread on TUAMF, the Trumpeter kit is actually "quite a bit nicer" than the Italeri offering. This surprises me, and pleases me, since the Trumpeter kit is so cheap ($9-$12) and I'm really starting to develop an affinity for these mysterious little bomber. And I was wrong about the stock decals, the choices are Soviet or Polish in NMF or PLAAF in the green-over-grey box art scheme. No VPAF (which is fine by me). Three choices of bomb load, and I also discovered that the box art is the only difference between Trumpeter's Il-28 and H-5 kits except that the H-5 kit includes an additional sprue for an apparently more accurate Chinese version of the rear turret. That's it.

I'm including all this info in case any of you are wanting to build one of these for yourself.

I would think they would be painted like their Migs. Tan with green uppers and light blue undersides but they could have been left in NMF for all I know.

Yeah, I was pretty surprised. Usually I can find at least one picture of something even if it's not very high quality. In this case, I have found literally none of their Il-28s. You're right, though, I should've looked for pictures of their MiGs. Totally slipped my mind. I'll have a gander after I upload some photos on another thread.

Seems Tom Cooper has a "Wings over Ogaden" book coming out later this month that might shed some light on things.

Time to start spending less on kits and gear and more on reference material, I suppose. Eventually I'd like to get copies of all of Tom's available works, of course. His information on the Ugandan MiG-29 thread was really impressive; we're so lucky to have him actually browse this forum. Admittedly, though, I've been spoiled by using the web as a reference for almost everything for so many years. The importance of good reference books was brought back home to me on this one, for sure. Thanks for all your help on everything so far, mate, I really appreciate it.

l will see what l got

I would be most grateful for any information you could share.

Edited by caszerino
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Hi i have build the Trumpeter kit some years back and have also the Italerie kit in my stash, the mouldings look very similar, not to say even.

Why not trying some aftermarked stuff for Italerie.

Good luck with that !

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This one promises to be interesting. Not seen the kit built before and Somali Air Force machines of any type are seldom seen modelled.

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I'm almost sure I've seen a photograph of a bit of one, in the background of some dumped aircraft, it was NMF. I could be very wrong but I'm going to do some digging for the photo...

If I was building it though, I would do the same camo scheme, as the Mig-19's, that looks great!

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Details of the aircraft of the Somali Aeronautical Corp are notoriously hard to come by. As has already been mentioned there are some great pictures of derelict aircraft at Mogadishu in the early 90's (everything from Mig-15 UTI's up to Aeritalia G.222's) and they wore a variety of colour schemes.

I have checked every photo I can find from that period but have yet to find an Il-28, this does not mean that they were not there however. Even Tom Cooper couldn't find any details of their use or exact number of them supplied in his excellent book on Soviet and Russian military aircraft in Africa.

Good luck with this one, I will be watching with interest.

Craig.

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Good luck with this one caszerino, it's already showing signs of being a 'must watch' build :popcorn:

Cliff

Thanks, mate. I'm gonna need it!

Hi i have build the Trumpeter kit some years back and have also the Italerie kit in my stash, the mouldings look very similar, not to say even.

Why not trying some aftermarked stuff for Italerie.

Good luck with that !

Yeah, I don't see any major differences between the Italeri/Bilek and Trumpeter kits. The old Airfix ones are apparently particularly bad and more expensive than the Trumpeter kit anyway. I may get the resin cockpit set designed for the Italeri and try to get everything fitted together, but that is going to cost me twice what the kit cost me, so we'll see. The kit arrives in a couple days and I'll see where I can go from there. Thank you!

This one promises to be interesting. Not seen the kit built before and Somali Air Force machines of any type are seldom seen modelled.

Thanks! There isn't a huge amount of info out there, even on the model kits. There are only two on Modeling Madness and none at all (that I found) on HyperScale. I also found an NMF East German example but the pictures were way too small to be of much use, and the text was in German (which I translated easily enough, but there were no revelations contained therein). But I'm getting some ideas and getting myself psyched up for the challenge!

I'm almost sure I've seen a photograph of a bit of one, in the background of some dumped aircraft, it was NMF. I could be very wrong but I'm going to do some digging for the photo... If I was building it though, I would do the same camo scheme, as the Mig-19's, that looks great!

Well, the Il-28 (according to Wikipedia) was joint-lowest in the inventory along with the MiG-21. They only ever had three of either aircraft. I would've figured at least one derelict would've survived and been photographed, but so far ... At some point, if nothing turns up, I will make a "command decision" and pick a scheme either related to, or directly copied from, one of their other Soviet-built aircraft types. The Egyptian examples are a tan and green camo scheme, so those are probably the colors I will use. I'll figure out something out!

Details of the aircraft of the Somali Aeronautical Corp are notoriously hard to come by [...] Even Tom Cooper couldn't find any details of their use or exact number of them supplied in his excellent book on Soviet and Russian military aircraft in Africa.

Good luck with this one, I will be watching with interest.

I was hoping there would be more information on post-independence Somali Air Force than SAC (1954-1960), but that has not been the case at all so far. And you answered my question about Tom Cooper maybe knowing more. If he couldn't get info, then I am content to say that probably none, at least available to me, exists. Thank you!

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Although none of us have managed to find an image (so far!) of an actual Somali Il-28 I have been giving some thought as to what scheme they might have been used in. As far as I can tell all Il-28's were delivered to their operators in NMF and any camouflage that was applied was done so at a later date by them, this is certainly the case with the other African operators such as Nigeria and Egypt and I cannot see it being any different for Somalia.

Actually the NMF isn't NMF! The aircraft were painted with a protective coat of lacquer which contained aluminium pigments, this makes painting your model an awful lot easier as the aircraft had a uniform finish rather than different panels appearing in different shades, and there are some very good aluminium paints out there (Revell aquacolour and Tamiya to name but two). Even the Chinese built H-5's were finished in the same way.

As for where the roundels went I have no idea unfortunately. But I would look at other operators and see if there is any standardisation in their roundel placement and then follow suit.

I hope this is helpful, and please don't be discouraged as I and others are really looking forward to seeing this one.

Craig.

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Watching with interest, for some reason I have always liked this aeroplane. Never got to see one for real though, i think that Romanian example was due at RIAT some years ago but was written off a few weeks before it was due.

Good luck

FF

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Watching with interest, for some reason I have always liked this aeroplane. Never got to see one for real though, i think that Romanian example was due at RIAT some years ago but was written off a few weeks before it was due.

Good luck

FF

You are correct (I was just reading about it yesterday)! It stayed in service until the 1980s and was due to show at RIAT, but several weeks prior to the show it had a hard landing in bad weather and broke in two (yet all the crewmen walked away from it).

Although none of us have managed to find an image (so far!) of an actual Somali Il-28 I have been giving some thought as to what scheme they might have been used in. As far as I can tell all Il-28's were delivered to their operators in NMF and any camouflage that was applied was done so at a later date by them, this is certainly the case with the other African operators such as Nigeria and Egypt and I cannot see it being any different for Somalia.

Actually the NMF isn't NMF! The aircraft were painted with a protective coat of lacquer which contained aluminium pigments, this makes painting your model an awful lot easier as the aircraft had a uniform finish rather than different panels appearing in different shades, and there are some very good aluminium paints out there (Revell aquacolour and Tamiya to name but two). Even the Chinese built H-5's were finished in the same way.

As for where the roundels went I have no idea unfortunately. But I would look at other operators and see if there is any standardisation in their roundel placement and then follow suit.

I hope this is helpful, and please don't be discouraged as I and others are really looking forward to seeing this one.

Craig.

Oh, I'm not discouraged, I'm actually looking forward to the challenge! I have Tamiya Flat Aluminum in good quantity as well as a number of Alclad II metal finishes. Painting with enamels is currently an issue for me because the terrible house I'm currently renting ... let's just say I can't get any of the windows open. So if I can spray it with acrylics, I will be a happy boy (I still use a filter and a fan, but acrylics are so much less noxious than enamels). If not, I'll figure something out. My spray booth is portable for a reason. Or I may camouflage it, since they obviously had their own paint scheme now that I have seen their MiG-21's scheme. We (as I value you chaps' input so much) will make that decision by consensus when the time comes. ;)

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O-Tay! (I have no idea why I'm channeling Buckwheat tonight)

Here we go. The kit arrived tonight. And because I am sick in the head I ordered a second one ... but this one is the Harbin H-5 box. I honestly don't think there's any difference except no Soviet or Polish decals in the H-5 (and the H-5 was $8 while the Il-28 was $12! :fuyou_2: ). So this way I'll have extra parts just in case, or if everything goes fairly smoothly on the Il-28 then I'll bash together another one and paint it with different markings (probably Egyptian for the second one but I'm open to suggestions).

I photographed all the included documentation for your delight and delectation, so you can peruse all of that at your leisure. I thought it was interesting that the PLAAF markings are referenced with Tamiya colors in the main instructions. Then there's a pull-out page for the Soviet and Polish schemes, but it uses Gunze Sangyo paint numbers! The documentation seems adequate, but far from great.

Known issues - no front gear well. Just a little recess into which you glue the gear doors and the nose gear. Weak. I will need to figure out how to improve this. The other issue is that the instructions tell you to cut the entire rear turret out of the included fuselage and replace it with two other parts. However, because I've done my research, I know that this is only for the Harbin H-5. So I don't have to cut the fuselage up, but both turrets don't fit in the stock assembly. The nose glazing is not accurate, I already know that. But I don't think I have it in me yet to get that creative and try to fix it. We'll see. Finally the angles for the tailplane and the wings are incorrect (swapped, basically). This is going to cause an endless nightmare of filling and sanding to correct but I will probably try to do just that.

Five sprues in three poly bags. Soviet, Polish, Chinese decals. Separate photo included of all the bombs. You lot figure out which configuration you want me to build. I'm liking the One Giant Bomb configuration because I'm a lazy sod (and I've actually seen video of them loading this bomb onto one, which I believe is linked above), but I think the options are 1, 4, and 8 bombs. Eight looks pretty cool, I'll admit, and I do plan to paint up the bomb bay nicely and maybe do a bit of detailing (I think it's yellow chromate, but we'll see).

Thanks to BerndM's vicious peer pressure (just a joke, mate :winkgrin:) I have already ordered the Pavla C72033 resin cockpit set, and if it's realistically possible (meaning both logistically and for someone at my low skill level) I intend to detail the crew pit walls as shown in the hand drawing (with the sort of diamond "quilted" interior). Thinking maybe Green Stuff or some sort of putty. No other detailing besides the resin pieces is available to my knowledge. I have no PE stash yet.

OK, obligatory photos follow. Construction probably won't begin until next weekend, because I need to get this Bf-110 done and dusted but ... we all know how that goes. :coolio:

eMYv0gs.jpg

Bf-110 shown at left to remind me, and the rest of you lot, that it needs to get finished first!

L7ho6Si.jpg

jrCjMRG.jpg

Bombs! Figure out which config you like best.

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BIG bomb! :D

Looks a well detailled kit on the sprues but will see how it goes together for you. Hope the aforementioned issues don't cause you too much trouble.

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O-Tay! (I have no idea why I'm channeling Buckwheat tonight)

Here we go. The kit arrived tonight. And because I am sick in the head I ordered a second one ... but this one is the Harbin H-5 box. I honestly don't think there's any difference except no Soviet or Polish decals in the H-5 (and the H-5 was $8 while the Il-28 was $12! :fuyou_2: ). So this way I'll have extra parts just in case, or if everything goes fairly smoothly on the Il-28 then I'll bash together another one and paint it with different markings (probably Egyptian for the second one but I'm open to suggestions).

Well, for the Beagle you also have two aftermarket sheets from Hi-Decal, covering a.o. several camouflaged options:

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/ISL/Hi-Decal_Line/1.72/72031-72040/72039/HD72039.htm

and

http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/ISL/Hi-Decal_Line/1.72/72041-72050/72043_IL-28/HD72043.htm

Greetings

Diego

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Good, I liked the single large bomb configuration myself.

Diego, I was indeed planning to use the Hi-Scale Egyptian set for the second one. But now that I look at the others, maybe a Hungarian example is in order. Gotta get this SAC version built first.

I have decided that I am going to use a paint scheme "inspired by" their MiG camo patterns. So something approximating this. I am not going to try to copy it exactly as I have very strong doubts that SAC had any sort of stringent guidelines for much of anything. Supposedly by 1983 they had so few qualified pilots they actually had to hire four Nigerians to fly Hawker Hunters in a military parade that year. Almost all of their planes were out of action by 1989.

sac_mig-21mf_226_001.jpg

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Interesting subject.

I'll follow this with great interest.

Good luck with your build.

/Bosse :popcorn:

Thank you! It's a bit daunting because I know the kit has issues, it'll be my first time using aftermarket detail parts, and it's a subject without much reference material available. So I'm a bit nervous but excited, too!

I have one of these in the stash which calls out to me occasionally. It will be interesting to watch your progress.

Hoping to get started this weekend, but I'm waiting on the Pavla resin parts to arrive from Poland and it's always the cockpit that has to be assembled and painted first. Also waiting on a large order of AKAN paints, some of which I bought specifically for this build, and they're coming all the way from Hong Kong (killer deal on eBay). But I'm raring to go! Gotta knock this Bf-110 out first, which I'm hoping to do in the next three days.

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I have found this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftofj4wsFvY - but it's of very poor quality and does not appear to show any Il-28s. I have been unable to find a single photo of a Somali example so far. If Mr. Cooper has any input on this (I know it's not a MiG or Sukhoi, though), I would be most grateful.

...

Any ideas? I'm thinking they probably flew them as they were painted on delivery, which would be the Soviet scheme (right?). I'm a little hesitant to try doing NMF on my second aircraft. I feel like I need a lot more practice before I try that. Likely to end up a neutral grey underside with a darker gloss grey upper surface. I feel like I've seen Polish examples of that. Still, painting is a long, long way off.

...how could I miss this thread all the time....?!? :eek: & :headscratch:

My most sincere apology for this act of blatant ignorance of such a (for me) 'hot' topic... :suicide:

Somali Il-28s... they've got only 4 of them; the sole Il-28U suffered a bird strike and crashed (killing its Somali pilot and Soviet instructor) already before Ogaden War of 1977-1978; another was destroyed on the ground by EtAF F-5Es during attack on Hargheisa AB, in autumn 1977...another at a later date, and the last surviving example was limited to few nocturnal 'hit-and-run' strikes afterwards before... well, its fate remains unknown.

Nobody has got any photos (not even a number of ex-CCS pilots that so kindly helped with research for Wings over Ogaden), and thus there are only 'oral' descriptions, as follows:

- natural metall overall;

- big, single-digit serials (1-4) on the front fuselage, either 'slightly in front of the cockpit' (one source) or 'directly below the cockpit' (another source), either in 'dark blue' (one source, I tend to 'believe' this one slightly more) or 'matt black' (other source)

- Somali roundel on the rear fuselage, tops and bottoms of the wings.

Brrrr... I most sincerely hope you're 'still' going to find this interesting enough to proceed with this project: never saw any CCS Il-28 being built before...

hqdefault.jpg

Edited by Tom Cooper
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