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Mig-31 Foxhound 1:48


Mike

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Mig-31 Foxhound

1:48 HobbyBoss

 

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The Mig-31 is an incredible machine even today, but was innovative and even more impressive when it was first brought into service, delivering on the failed promises of the Mig-25 Foxbat, and adding more capabilities.  Its job as an interceptor and missile truck was carried out with aplomb, and it was one of the first aircraft to be able to shoot down cruise missiles from above.

 

Carrying two pilots, with twin engines and tails, it was capable of flying supersonic at low levels due to the strength of the airframe, and had a capable radar system to detect all manner of threats.  I'm using the past tense here, but the aircraft is still in service in Russia, and although they are scheduled to be retired, the date is not yet set in stone.

 

 

The Kit

Until recently modellers in 1:48 scale had little choice when it came to the Foxhound, but now they have two modern new toolings.  I have reviewed and built the other kit, so it will be interesting to compare and contrast the two as we go along, but first impressions are good, with a lot of detail included, including a set of partial metal landing gear, good use of slide-moulding, and a sensible parts break-down.  There are twenty two sprues of varying sizes in grey styrene, two sprues of clear parts, two frets of Photo-Etch (PE) parts, seven pieces of white metal, six black "rubber" tyres, two decal sheets, a single fuselage part with a cardboard protector over the aft section, instruction booklet and two separate sheets for the painting and decaling of the airframe and included weapons.

 

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As already mentioned, the detail in the box looks to be excellent, with a few immediate differences noticeable.  Firstly, the interior of the intake trunking is portrayed differently, and the clear parts aren't tinted gold, so you'll have to do that yourself.  There also isn't a separate canopy for the closed option, so you will have to fit them carefully if you wish to go down that route.  Oddly, the panel lines on the fuselage that will be under the wing are raised, which I will look into later, but seemed strange.  There are only a few there, and most of the are straight, but if they turn out to be incorrect, it's on a few minutes work.  Initially, the fuselage also appears to be shorter than the competitor, but this is because more of the intake trunking is included on a separate assembly with the bleed-vents on the top causing the apparent difference.  The partial metal gear should give it sufficient strength to support its own weight, which has been a problem in the past that has lately affected my built-up.  This is a BIG model.

 

Construction begins with the cockpit, which has nicely detailed seats with moulded in seatbelts, instrument panels and side consoles with decals, as well as decals for instruments that are embedded in the sidewall inserts.  The cockpit is then installed in the nose, which is where another difference appears.  The nose is split vertically down the centre, and has the nose cone moulded in, which although different, I can't seem to muster an opinion as to whether it is better or worse.    We'll just call it different.  The coaming is well-detailed with PE HUD supports and clear parts adding further to the complexity.  The instructions tell you to install the fixed portions of the canopy at this stage, which is no bad thing, as the canopy struts stick up beyond the sills.

 

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The intakes are then built up from fewer main parts, with the outer wall simply thicker, rather than using two thicknesses, which removes one of the seams to tidy.  The bleed-vents are separate parts and install in the top using a small tab and hole for accuracy.  The intake trunks are depicted to full depth, and have raised outlines of the shapes that are actually indented into the trunks on the real thing.  This is a major saving on tooling from a production point of view, but is a negative as far as accuracy is concerned, but if you're fitting intake blanks or suspect no-one will notice, it's probably a fair assumption to make.  The main gear bays are made up in a similar manner to the other kit, as is the nose gear bay and its gear leg, which has a metal core that also includes the angled end section of the leg, which should make it more robust.  Gear bay detail should be good once painted and weathered.  The three bays are glued inside the fuselage lower, along with a recessed box for the 8TK IRSK that sits out at the front of the lower fuselage section, and is added later in the stowed position.  The nose assembly is then added to the front of the fuselage, which was a bit of a surprise.  This makes a little more sense when the intakes and their trunking are then added along with a blanking plate/bulkhead with engine faces installed, allowing you to line everything up.  It might be wise to place the upper wing/fuselage part at this stage, to ensure your joints are all aligned and there are no horrible gaps or steps.

 

The majority of the upper fuselage is attached to the upper wing panel, which is of course full width, and has strengthening ribs inside to prevent flexing, plus a set of exhaust bulkheads that will be used later.  The lower wing fixes to the underside, with the leading-edge slats moulded-in, while the trailing-edge control surfaces are separate parts, with different locating pegs to be removed if you are posing them deployed or stowed, which saves wasting additional parts.  This assembly is then dropped onto the fuselage, creating the almost complete airframe, which just needs the tail feathers and engines, plus a number of other smaller parts of course.  The exhausts are familiar, with a multi-stage tube assembled from three cylindrical parts, plus flame-holder for the afterburner and the rear face of the engine in each tube.  Careful painting is needed, and some pictures of the real thing show some sections are a Russian green shade, although this varies, and isn't throughout the exhaust, so don't be misled by the instructions.  Check your references before you commit to a totally green exhaust interior.  The parapack is a two-part assembly that is split horizontally for easier alignment, and fits to the rear of the spine on two small pins with corresponding holes in the deck.  The elevators are each single parts, due to their slim profile, and should (in general) be posed level when parked up, but can pivot around their axle if you feel the urge.

 

The twin tails are each two equal parts that avoids too-thick plastic that can lead to sink-marks that might mar the detail, but there are many fewer rivets depicted than the real McCoy, which are quite noticeable, and often have distinctive weathering that would be tricky to achieve without them as a guide.  Adding them won't require too much effort, but it would have been nice to have them there from the outset.  The raised rivets on the leading edges are also absent, and unless you have some Archer 3D rivet transfers, they'll be a little harder to add, and the bullet-fairings that house the various systems also seem simplified, and look like they have been copied from one tail to the other, when they should be asymmetrical.  It will take some modelling skill to replicate these correctly, which might grate a little if you weren't expecting to have to engage in this type of work.

 

The instructions then have you building up the canopies, which they have taken an interesting route to completion.  The outer canopy is of course clear, but has some detail moulded-in, and has only an outer surround added in grey styrene.  That initially seems like an over-simplification until you notice the number of small PE parts that are added to the inside of the canopy to represent the strips that hold the green insulation material in place.  To make your life easier, bend these parts to shape and then "glue" them with your favourite acrylic gloss varnish, as using CA could end up with a fogged canopy, which no-one wants.  A complete interior skin would make the painting part easier, but this method results in a more scale-thickness canopy structure, so if you take your time with the paint brush, it should look just about right when you finish.  The pilot's canopy is more simple, but has a set of rear-view mirrors added in PE, and both fit by their rear edge to the airframe, and rest on the rams that hold them to the correct angle.  They have also moulded the co-pilot's pop-up rear-view mirror in clear, so with an undercoat on the rear of chrome, it should have a more realistic look if you opt to post it raised.

 

The landing gear is designed for rough-field handling, and has an inboard/outboard pair of wheels on the main legs, which splay outward slightly, putting quite a lot of stress on the scale-replica legs, so strength is needed, and initially was absent from the other recent model of this type.  The designers have provided limited metal gear for this kit, including a metal core to the main leg, a metal bogey (with plastic parts), and a metal bracing strut that should give adequate staying power to prevent the Foxhound from taking a squat on your display shelf.  The plastic parts provide the cosmetic details, and the smaller jacks and struts are also styrene, as they hold no structural weight.  Coupled with the metal nose-gear core, the legs should be good for extended duty.  The wheels have styrene hubs and a slightly flexible black plastic tyre, which has tread moulded in (a rarity from the pictures I have seen), as well as some nice sidewall detail.  They would benefit from some careful painting, as the black is a little too dark for the real world, but for the novice, they could be used as is after a scrub of the contact surface with a sanding stick.

 

Underneath the fuselage the gun blister is constructed from two parts and glued to the slot on the starboard fuselage side, while the lower intake flaps are added in either dropped (for extra air intake) or raised positions as you see fit, including their straight or kinked actuator fairings.  The large air-brake/gear bay doors are also inserted into their hinge-points and struts, with recessed detail on the inner face, and the nose wheel receives a nicely moulded mud-guard that straddles the ends of its axle.  The rest of the gear bay doors are then added along with their struts and some nice PE parts.  The nose gear's front door has three holes for the landing lights, which are separate clear parts that are fitted from behind, making it easy to give them nice shiny reflectors, although the designers still haven't managed to avoid ejector pins in the rear.  A profusion of aerials, probes and intakes are fitted to the underside and nose of the beast, with Angle-of-Attack (AoA) probes on the sides of the nose in PE, as well as some of the others that will be most visible.  Of note is the lack of refuelling probe option on this boxing, but unless I'm imagining it, there appears to be a spot for it, so we will perhaps see at least another boxing with the probe and a few other subtle differences.  Let's hope they adjust those tail fins.

 

Now for the fun parts – the weapons.  This starts with the wing pylons, which are built up from two halves each, and fit into pre-drilled holes in the underside of the wing panels.  If you are fitting the big R-33 missiles on the semi-recessed belly stations you will need to remove the tops of two raised sections on the fuselage underside, so if that's the plan it would be sensible to do that before you start, to avoid any unnecessary cursing later.  There are no fancy single-part mouldings with the missiles, which I was on the fence about anyway, as you double up on the seams to scrape, so I won't lament their loss, but simply comment on the difference.  The R-33s build up from two halves with two fins moulded-in, the other two added to the slots, and the steering vanes added at the rear.  The two folded-over vanes are shown as "optional", which isn't the case unless you are showing a missile in flight or on a rack.  The vanes fold over next to the fuselage to prevent the two interfering, so ensure that the "top" two nearest the shackle-points receive those parts, and if in doubt, check your references.  Each of the four missiles has a connecting plate added to the shackles, and they are then glued into the belly recesses.  For the wing pylons you have some choices, so either follow the load-out guide, check your references, or pick a selection that you think looks good – entirely your choice!

 

4 x R-60 AA-8 Aphid infrared short range A2A missile on twin launch rail adapter

2 x R-40T AA-6 Acrid infrared medium range A2A missiles

2 x R-40R  AA-6 Acrid radar medium range A2A missiles

2 x Fuel tanks with pylon adapters

 

All of the missiles are supplied in halves, so take care in aligning the parts to minimise the clean-up work after the glue has set, and take care in adding the separate fins, steering vanes and exhausts to ensure they are all square.

 

 

Markings

There are three markings options supplied in the box, although a full complement of digits in three flavours are included if you want to depart from the sheet.  The markings are spread over two decal sheets, with a lot of stencils applied, which given the size of the diagrams and the profusion of numbers and lines, is going to be a little tricky without magnification.  There are a good range of instrument decals provided though, which should help in making the cockpit look its best, and the missiles are supplied with stencils too.  Without wishing to make you spend your hard-earned money on aftermarket before you've even broken the seals on the bags, I would heartily recommend the wet transfer stencil set from HGW (248025), which although intended for the other kit, would fit this kit too, and would leave you with no carrier film to disguise.  The drawings are bigger too!

 

If I can't tempt you, the stencils included in the kit are of good quality, and with a little care, the carrier film can be hidden with the application of a few coats of gloss varnish and cautious sanding.  The pink Germetika sealant decals are also missing from this boxing, and as the ground crews slap it on all over the place, it would be useful to add this during painting and masking.  The rest of the decals are sharp, in good register and with suitably dense colours to prevent bleed-through of the paint underneath.

 

From the box you can build one of the following:

 

  • 24 Blue
  • 61 Blue
  • 174th Safanov GvIAP, 6th OA, "Boris Safonov" red 08

 

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All aircraft are medium grey (see AKAN for the perfect colours), and have the obligatory National markings of red stars on the wings and tail surfaces.  The last option appears to have more information than the others for no apparent reason, and also has the name Борис Сафонов (Boris Safanov) in red on the intake sides under a blue flash.  Safanov was a decorated pilot during WWII, flying 234 combat missions before being lost in the sea after his P-40 came down after a dogfight.  He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner three times, the order of Lenin, Hero of the Soviet Union, and even a British Distinguished Flying Cross and is still remembered in aviation circles.

 

 

Conclusion

I knew from the start that this was going to be a difficult conclusion to write, as the kit has a lot to recommend it, but also has some flaws such as the tail ironwork and the oddly detailed intake trunking.  It is up against stiff competition, and for the most part it comes across as a well thought out kit, but loses marks for the errors and simplifications.  Little things such as the lack of the large circular decal from the tail and over-busy decal guide also conspire against it, losing it critical points along the way.  As a norm we don't discuss prices in our reviews, as these vary massively once the discounters get hold of a kit, but at the retail price point, it is difficult to recommend over… you know, the other one.  If you find one at a good price and the aspects I have mentioned don't bother you or you fancy a crack at fixing them, you could pick one up and it will build up to a model that will impress all but the accuracy obsessed and those that know the airframe well.  None of the flaws I have picked up on are fatal, but together they do the kit no favours.

 

Our sincere thanks to our friends at Creative for letting us have this review sample.

 

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Review sample courtesy of

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Thanks for the review, it looks pretty decent, apart from the unfortunate sink marks in the main gear bays. The panel lines seem nicer than on the AMK kit.

 

As a fan of the type plus the fact that some years ago having a detailed injection kit of it in 1/48 (let alone two) was just a wet dream, I had to get both this and the AMK one (on sale).

 

I hope you have the HB Su-27 kit review on the calendar, too :)

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As always an excellent review! Thank you!

 

The kit is the earlier version of the Foxhound and as such is correctly missing the inflight refuelling. The MiG-31’s are still in service and will stay in service for a very long time!!!!!  Airframes are undergoing upgrade as we speak at overhaul factory in Rzhev and at the Sokol factory. The early “simple” MiG-31 airframes have been retired for some time and most of them were scraped.

 

The raised panel lines represent weld lines which are a prominent feature of the MiG-31 and completely lacking from the other manufacturers kit. If it was up to me I would have liked to see even more of them around to correctly reproduce the real aircraft!

 

The cockpit floor has at last the correct cross section!

 

The parabrake housing and the gun cover are perfectly reproduced here, unlike in the other kit. It is good to see that all the fine antennas / temperature probes / missile fin supports are reproduced in this kit, which were missing from the other one.

 

The inside of the intake can be painted to make it look the part, but I have to ask:  how much of it is visible on a finished kit unless you get an endoscope and a powerful search light to have a closer look at it. On the other kit it was more a question of a technological challenge for the kit designer. It did look fantastic but you need to do a real cut-away of the kit to show these details and giving them full credit.

 

Best regards

Gabor

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30 minutes ago, ya-gabor said:

The inside of the intake can be painted to make it look the part, but I have to ask:  how much of it is visible on a finished kit unless you get an endoscope and a powerful search light to have a closer look at it. On the other kit it was more a question of a technological challenge for the kit designer. It did look fantastic but you need to do a real cut-away of the kit to show these details and giving them full credit.

 

True, some wash to bring up the raised detail might be more than enough for these to look the part in the depths of intakes.

 

On the other hand, AMK's dedication to engineering and such detail is bringing them extra credit which makes their next kits something not to be missed (for me, those would be the upcoming MiG-25 and F-14 kits). Hopefully the somewhat deep panel lines can be improved for those.

Edited by Dudikoff
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7 minutes ago, Dudikoff said:

Hopefully the somewhat deep panel lines can be improved for those.

 

:blink:  Having built one and a half of those, I can't remember any deep or wide panel lines :hmmm:

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1 hour ago, Mike said:

 

:blink:  Having built one and a half of those, I can't remember any deep or wide panel lines :hmmm:

 

This was pointed out in some reviews and by some buyers. You don't see a difference between panel line son the HB kit and e.g. some heavier lines around the rear fuselage on the AMK kit? Or e.g. the ones on the flaps?

 

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I bought both kits, but it'll be a few months before I can get my hands on them so I can only use photos and owner's subjective opinions as a reference.

Edited by Dudikoff
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Creative Models (who supplied the review sample) has this model listed in their weekly specials section for £41.59 which brings it closer to the price of, ummm, you know, the other one... Ideal for those of you that like bargains that allow you to get "Creative"...

 

Edited by March
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As the kit represents an early MiG-31, I would guess yes.

 

Begemot do two excellent MiG-31 decal sheets - the aircraft you are looking for is option No 22 or No 24 on the .pdf instruction sheet.....

 

http://begemotdecals.ru/doc/48-044 MiG-31 (1).pdf

 

I'm not sure what detail changes to the kit you would need to make - if any ?

 

Ken

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3 minutes ago, Flankerman said:

As the kit represents an early MiG-31, I would guess yes.

 

Begemot do two excellent MiG-31 decal sheets - the aircraft you are looking for is option No 22 or No 24 on the .pdf instruction sheet.....

 

http://begemotdecals.ru/doc/48-044 MiG-31 (1).pdf

 

I'm not sure what detail changes to the kit you would need to make - if any ?

 

Ken

 

Thanks Ken. That decal sheet was what I had in mind, 903 was such a beautiful scheme. 

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On 04/12/2016 at 10:21 PM, MiGFan79 said:

Would this kit be a suitable base for building one of the blue MIG-31 demo aircraft?

Depends on how accurate you want the model to be. As Ya-Gabor has pointed out here somewhere, the Hobby Boss kit is an earlier version with no refuelling probe. 374 certainly had a probe and I think 903 did too.

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I've not really noticed this aircraft much until recently and the more I look at this kit and the AMK one, the more I am super tempted to shell out for one.

Now, I am not a rivet counter nor a stickler for accuracy, and so with that in mind, I ask: which of the 2 is the better one?

They both look on par with each other in terms of detail but has anyone built the HB one yet and can comment on the actual fit? I like the sound of the AMK engineering and my experiences with HB have never been terribly great, but I also believe HB have seemingly come a long way since their earlier kits (much the same as Trumpeter in that way) and am quite prepared to give them a go. I guess it's a value for money question really. Both kits appear to give you what looks like an accurate Mig 31 at the end of the build.

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The very first version of the MiG-31 in service had a different air intake top, it was completely different including the cover for the intake ramp actuator.  For an injection moulding company this would be just two or 4 new parts on a sprue but unfortunately neither this manufacturer nor the other one has catered for this. The other manufacturer has categorically distanced it from doing the early version.

 

As far as it is visible from the above photos this kit has the early engine exhaust with individual longitudinal outer petals. The later version (as represented on the other manufacturers kit) had a constant diameter outer “skirt” and with time this version became dominant. Even with this “skirt” there are two versions of it and one could find aircraft with both versions!     

 

Best regards

Gabor

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17 hours ago, March said:

Depends on how accurate you want the model to be. As Ya-Gabor has pointed out here somewhere, the Hobby Boss kit is an earlier version with no refuelling probe. 374 certainly had a probe and I think 903 did too.

 

Thanks for the info. I think I'll take the plunge anyway, I've wanted to do 903 for a long time. Looking at pics I agree it does have a probe though.

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Both 374 and 903 were system demonstrators, and also "demonstrator" airframes so they had a lot of "non standard" systems fitted to them, cockpits made "safe" to show in the West  . . .  To add the refueling probe would not be a serious chalange, still yes it is true that you will not be able to build 903 straight out of the box.

 

As to the choice between the Hobby Boss or the other manufacturers kit, it is up to everyones own taste. A lot has been written about both. For me, I find interesting to see the corrections that HB has made to the obvious mistakes of the other manufacturer, while they also made some of their own silly mistakes. I find the surface details on HB much better than on the other kit and lots more fine details which are completely missing from the other manufacturers product.

I hope that HB got the size of the markings on the decal sheet right not like the other maker. 

 

Best regards

Gabor

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