Mfezi
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Posts posted by Mfezi
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10 hours ago, Doom3r said:
Let's not forget that first T-50 prototype flew in 2011 but actual Su-57 entered service only last year.
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.
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Thanks for the links! I know what I'm going to watch tonight...
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Thanks, Massimo. This is getting more and more interesting! Please post here if they send you any more information.
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Thank you very much for that confirmation, Massimo! It is really great getting it directly from the person who did the restoration.
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6 minutes ago, STAVKA said:
I did not know that Kuznetsov is doing a Yak-7 book-- that should be good. Looking forward to it. I am sorry to say that I have never seen Viktor Bogatov's drawings of the Yak-9, either. I'll have to try to track them down. This is turnming into an interesting little thread!
Kuznetsov's book on the Yak-7, "Як-7. Истребитель тотальной войны" was published in 2014...
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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:
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.”
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11 hours ago, Learstang said:
Yes, I agree Dennis - it does look the same, or nearly so. It may be unfair, but I've always felt the AKAN colours were too dark, especially the AMT-11 (as dark as what I use for AMT-12 Dark Grey), and the AMT-7. I used the AKAN AMT-7 on a model (an Il-2, I believe), but although I liked the colour itself, I thought it was too dark and painted over it with Testors Flanker Blue or Topside Blue.
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).
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3 minutes ago, John Thompson said:
You should also consider Kuznetsov's two-volume set on the Yak-1 and Yak-1B; it's published in English, and includes excellent drawings which identify some of the distinguishing features between various production series of the "First Yak" (which was the title when originally published in Russian; however, the English version's drawings are much more detailed).
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.
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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!
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12 minutes ago, spitfire said:
Sounds familiar, I have quite a range of model paints now after going through the same type of route, trying to match available model paints with the AKAN range of enamels, below is a typical example of this.
Yes, that looks very familiar😀
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1 hour ago, DLinevitch said:
Sergey Moroz no-name internet compiler, hi is not a professional. In addition, he uses my materials collected from sites where they were illegally posted to the public.
Viktor Bogatov my colleague and good friend, a well-known engineer reconstructor. If you have questions about the development of the Yak-9 drawings or Modelsvit Yak-9' kit, you can write them here, I will ask him to answer them.
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.
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12 hours ago, STAVKA said:
[laughter] and another! I have conspired to push "send"... Any road, I started talking about upper surfaces, but the matter was lowers. So, let me correct and clarify.
The LOWER surfce of the wing adjacent to fuel cell cover has the paint stack = ALG-1, AMT-7, Gris Bleu Claire (my assumption, no expert on French lacquers) and a darker grey. Priming with ALG-1 being absolutly typical Saratov practice. Some parts of the fuselage (some might know that the wing is not from the same aircraft) have a paint stack of seven layers in places. I have doumented the evolution of several ex N-N Yak-3s in profile, and this level of re-painting was actually not especially unusual. The re-painting of tactical and unit markings was particularly bewildering. Sorry, a typo of "AMT-1" there for ALG-1. Apologies.
There are small areas of actual AMT-7 still visible on the fuselage, and you can dig for it on the wings. That was the state of preservation when I examined it.
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.
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16 minutes ago, John Thompson said:
What about the series of Yak-9 drawings by Viktor Bogatov, published in four issues of MHobby magazine from June to September 2015? These are considered to be more accurate than the ones by Leipnik.
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.
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1 hour ago, STAVKA said:
Oh yes, one last bit before I forget: Yak-3 resto. When examining physical evidence the first thing one encounters is what I call the 'paint stack'. Literally, this is the (usually) several layers of paint on any surface. This dark colour you see on the wings is not the paint sitting on the surface (or, actually on the primed surface, which is ALG-1). It is the third colour in the stack at the inner wing panel, upper, near the fuel filler cap. Digging below you'd find a layer of Gris Bleu Claire, then AMT-7, then AMT-1. The paint in view was debated as either Gris Bleu Fonce, or a primer whose name I don't recall. Mobile phone snaps of artefacts often leave much to be desired.
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?
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Thanks Massimo. That picture of the fabric is a new one to me. The colours certainly look very faded - in some places they seem to fade almost to white and in other places it appears almost translucent.
Back to my earlier question though: STAVKA seemed to suggest that the original lower surface colour of the Yak-3 at Le Bourget was not AMT-7. This seems to be in conflict with everything that I know about that aircraft, so I really would like to know more about the story behind that suggestion and what colour the lower surface of the aircraft would originally have been painted in, if not AMT-7.
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3 hours ago, STAVKA said:
The Yak-3 resto at Le Bourget is a classic. I presume you [respondant] mean to tell us that the dark blue-grey colour on the wing is "AMT-7"? You would be very wrong.
I assume you are talking about the lower surface colour after the later restoration paint had been removed. Please explain this part, if you don't mind? This is the first hint that I ever heard that this Yak-3 was not originally painted in the standard Soviet colours. What colour do you believe it is and why would it be different than what was used on other Yak-3s?
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Another wow! That is a fantastic document.
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Beautiful work. I must make a note of the Mr Color 8: It seems to work extremely well for simulating that Russian aluminium lacquer finish.
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Yes, I understand that. But the correct English transliteration is 'shturmovik', not sturmovik. The initial letter in the Cyrillic is a 'sha', which is the 'sh' sound. This is represented quite nicely in English by 'sh'. I realise that in Czech, for example, an 's' with a diacritical mark over it is the correct transliteration, but not in English. This is an English-speaking forum. Therefore, it should be spelled 'shturmovik', not 'sturmovik'.
There are actually several standards on cyrillic transliteration and although the ones that use the "š" (a "s" with a caron) have their roots in the Czech language, they can be used in other languages also, including English. For example, someone working in linguistics would probably use it that way. There is actually a pretty good Wikepedia article on the various cyrillic transliteration standards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Russian
However, I agree fully that without the caron, writing a "s" in place of the Russian "sh" letter is simply wrong. So any use of "Sturmovik" (as written here) cannot be correct. Either you have to add the caron or you have to write it "sh" instead.
Transliteration is full of pitfalls: I am fairly fluent in Russian but when I see a piece of Russian text written in transliterated form it usually confuses the heck out of me. It is easier for me to read Russian handwriting than it is to read transliterated text (cursive Russian looks quite different than cyrillic block letters and takes considerably longer to get used to). In fact, I am quite happy that my Russian teacher insisted that I do all my written homework using cursive writing: Because of that I can actually decipher the slogans on Soviet WWII aircraft, which often used cursive letters! Transliteration, on the other hand, has very little use when learning the language.
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Originally, I didn't like the Aubergine, but after seeing the Su-30SM and Su-35S in action, the "dark Flanker" scheme sort-of started to grow on me. At least to the point where I started accepting it. However, I must say, I am not at all disappointed that they decided to revert back to the old colours.
It also looks particularly smart on the new Yak-130's. At least, I hope they do he rest also in this scheme:
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That is truly beautiful box art! I am just a bit sad there is no South African Air Force marking - the orange and silver is still my favourite Harvard colour scheme.
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What a fantastic and inspirational build! I get nervous about adding a few details, while what you did was not just a conversion, it was pretty much a scratch-build. I am really impressed!
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Heck, Rizon, you would be bored out of your mind with a modern shake-and-bake Tamigawa kit...
It is hard to believe that seat is scratch-built, and in 1/72nd scale also!
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I wonder where they got the inspiration from for this one...
Yup, and before that we also used that "diamond scheme" on our Cheetah Cs and Ds. Unlike the Gripen, on the Cheetahs the darker diamond was also repeated on the bottom.
I must admit I really like the strong contrast made by the two colours used on the T-50. I think it looks great! I liked the earlier splinter scheme, but I think this looks even better.
Su-75 "Checkmate"
in Aircraft Modern
Posted
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.