Enzo the Magnificent

Last year we had a stripy FW-190, a stripy Panther and a stripy Corsair. This year we have a stripy Mig! Actually, I will be building four Mig-21s but they won't all be stripy. Here's the list: Mig-21PF of No 46 Sqn UAR Air Force (really the Egyptian Air Force) based at Mansourah in 1969 Mig-21PFM of the 921st Fighter Regiment "Sao Do", North Vietnamese Air Force in 1967. This is the stripy one. Mig-21MF of the Syrian Air Force in 1982 Mig-21bis of the Cuban DAAFAR in the late 80s or early 90s. And here is what I will be using. Four Zvezda Mig-21bis kits and various resin bits and pieces. There are two Matchbox kits thrown into the mix. They will be donating their spines to the PF and PFM but they won't be otherwise wasted. If I can find a way of making some replacement spines, I will be building them as Whifs. Whifs are outside the scope of this GB so I'll probably document them here but I won't be entering them in the gallery. Here we go... hold on tight, rider!

Looks absolutely smashing! The dayglo scheme is very striking indeed.

I am using two Matchbox kits as part donors which will donate their spines to make a PF and a PFM. That will leave me with two almost complete Matchbox kits. I will be building them as Whifs. Whifs are actually outside the scope of this GB. I'll probably show them in my WIP thread but I won't be putting them in the gallery.

That's basically the wings from two A-10s, an A-10 engine pod, the tail from an OV-10 and the forward fuselage from a Turbostar...

I don't hate it but I find that I rarely use all of a PE sheet. It's usually just the essentials. I think it would be a mistake for Airfix to include PE in their standard kits. Airfix's main market is the pocket money brigade. It is just a happy coincidence that their kits please a proportion of seriousmodellers as well. Why risk damaging the high-volume trade from casual buyers just to pander to a small number of serious modellers?

Me too! Which is why I think I really should try one myself.

George can always change it... Han shot first!!!

No. I'm not much into special schemes. Besides, that scheme is from the mid-90s. I tend to associate the blue Mirage scheme with the 1970s, so I will be building the alternative scheme from 1978.

Masking removed. The orange paint surface is quite fragile and you can see where I need to touch it up. I'll probably reinforce the orange paint surface with a coat of Klear before I go any further.

Masking removed and the touchup work started. I need to do quite a few touchups as the white coat turned out to be a bit inconsistent.

Work spread over a couple of weeks. These are the interior components ready for fitment. And fitted. The cockpit is quite detailed - not that much of it will be visible. Here is the wing assembly And a close-up. As others building this kit have remarked, there is a deep sink mark on one of the nacelle parts. Not a problem. Milliput sorts it right out! Another point of interest is that the kit has two fillets which project from the trailing edges to fill the rear part of the nacelles. These fillets don't actually exist on the real aircraft. The nacelle is simply open at the bottom. A couple of knife cuts and a few strokes with a sanding stick solve that problem. I also took a file to the very tip of the nacelles to thin the walls down a bit. Main assembly complete. I needed to use a bit of Milliput, but not too much. I have also started to mask the canopy.

Sprayed with Domestic Appliance Gloss White from a rattle can. Masked up and in the process of being sprayed with Model Master 20221 International Orange.

Here is the airframe completed, with a modicum of filling and sanding. It has also been sprayed with Alclad2 black primer and microfiller Then sprayed overall aluminium from the rattle can. Masked up and in the process of being sprayed with Lifecolour LC23 Fluorescent Orange.

Second build for this GB, this is the Hasegawa Mirage F1 - although this particular kit is in a Revell box. Once again, I built this kit about thirty years ago, so it's going to be a lot of fun building it again. I had originally intended to have a minor Mirage F1 frenzy, building two Hasegawa kits and two Heller kits to make a small collection. But that was before MPM announced a whole family of Mirage F1s, making the kits in The Stash somewhat redundant. I'll still build them, but the collection will be from the MPM kits. Let's hope that MPM follow the Mirage F1 family with a Mirage IIIC/E/V family. Anyway... this is the box, with a £7.99 price sticker. And the sprues. Despite being over thirty years old with raised panel lines, it's still a lovely kit. I think I'm gonna enjoy this.

This is my first build for this GB, the Hasegawa 1/72 Kfir C2. Firstly, proving that this kit cost less than a tenner... When it was originally released, it cost £1.49. When I bought it, a couple of months ago, it cost me £3.50 from evilbay. According to the seller, the box is damaged. Doesn't look very damaged to me. More like "discoloured". Maybe it was so cheap because the box is no use to a kit collector. Here are the sprues. I first built this kit when it was originally released in the late 70s, when I probably did pay £1.49 for it. This will be a pure nostalgia build using the same kit, same markings, everything.

On detachment, whatever aircraft was due to take you back home was known as a "Gozomie Bird".

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooo....

Indeed!

How bizarre! But actually quite useful. Except on corners...

I can borrow a VW camper van...

I think I'm going to have to watch that film again this weekend.

Do tell...

Proud! There's nothing wrong with having a good obsession!

Aaaaagggghhhh! My eyes! MY EYES!!!! This is going to be good.