John R

This was built from a very nice kit with very few problems. It is one of the many 'boring silver tubes' turned out by the Russians in the post war years and as such is probably of not much interest to 'mainstream' modellers but are like gold dust to sad people like me who have a fascination with these a/c. The 176 is of more significance than most as it was the first Russian a/c to achieve supersonic speed. One of the most difficult bits of the build was trying to model the special pitot tube designed to measure transonic speeds. Details of the build are on http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234939150-lavochkin-la-176-prop-jet-resin-172/ Some time ago I scratchbuilt one of these starting with an awful kit that purported to be a 176. The following picture compares the two The last picture shows the La 150, 168 and 176 from Prop & Jet plus a 174D (prototype La 15) from a rather rough plastic kit of Russian origin. John

Final steps were to 1. Add the silver ring to the fuselage. Made from a strip of Bare Metal Foil. 2. Add some home-made decals to the underside of the nose to represent the blast panels. 3. Make and fit the pitot tubes. The one on the fin was 0.4mm tube with a 2mm rod inset at the tip. The under wing pitot was a pin bits attached with CA. The support was plastic sheet and the pitot was 2mm rod held on by flattened 0.4mm tube. Very fiddly 4. Attach aerial 'wire'. I had used some elastic thread from Aeroclub on a previous model and thought that it looked too much like rope but this time I found that it consisted of many strands which could be reduced to give a more reasonable thickness. One thing I did differently from the instructions was making the cover for the light that is fitted within the flow divider in the intake. Clear tape is suggested as the cover. On the 168 I made previously, I used a folded piece of plastic bottle. This time I carved a piece of clear sprue to shape to match the shape of the inlet divider. I am still not happy with either. Noe 'Ready for Inspection' John

U/c fitted. One remarkable thing about Prop&Jet kits is the way things fit together. The wheels (round!) fit straight on to the stub axle and that fits into the u/c bay at the correct angle because the u/c legs have a flange at the top that mates with the u/c bay. However I'm not sure that they got the length of the retraction struts quite right and the instructions are not clear about where they fit. John

Main topic updated to incorporate new information from Ross and Welkin

Thank you both Ross - the extended fairing in the first is at the rear of the fin. I was asking about the one at the front which, in your references and Welkin's, shows what looks like a standard Meteor item. I must try to get a scan of the kit instructions to clarify the issue. John

I have just acquired one of these and looking at the instructions revealed an oddity. You are required to cut away the bullet at the tail/fin junction and replace it with a cylindrical section with a hemispherical nose. However in all the photos that I have seen of this a/c it appears to have a standard Meteor bullet. Can anybody shed any light on this please? There is also, in some pictures - see later post by rossm, an extension to the rear of the bullet. Was this for a tail parachute and when was it fitted. The box art shows it fitted but there is no mention of it in the instructions. The colours given are Dark Green and Ocean Grey topside and Yellow underside. Which are the Humbrol or Hannants equivalents please and were they matt or gloss? John

Had a bit of a problem with the canopy. Previous models by Prop&Jet had very nice vacform (oxymoron?) canopies but now a clear resin one was provided which was not up to the standard of the rest of the kit, being slightly out of shape. I did consider trying to reshape it with hot water but decided to see how it looks when fitted and if I can live with it. Model with canopy fitted, rear pitot from 4mm tube, primed and sprayed with Alclad black base. John

Is that the one that appears at air displays? If so, and if you don't get anything satisfactory, I have some slides taken at Cosford in 2001 that show some 'bumps' on the wingtips. They are not the best but if you are desperate... My other thought is that there are websites that show pictures taken at airshows but I don't know how far back they go. John

Maybe you have already tried this but have you posted this question where American modellers would see it? Someone over there might have actually seen it or known a man who did. John

Is this any help? No rivets but shows panel lines http://richard.ferriere.free.fr/3vues/f94c_3v.jpg Good luck with the kit - especially around the cockpit area John

I wondered why Musa (Zakoreev for those who don't know who runs Prop & Jet) hadn't done a 200. The Red Star book is what I used for my 'scratchbuilt ' version. It's fascinating to see all the prototypes the Soviets produced. When I was growing up the Mig 15, La 15 and Yak 23 seemed to be the limits of our knowledge. I asked Musa if the ordinary Russians knew any more than we did and it seemed that they knew even less! John

Killinghome - why don't you mount them and hang them on the wall if you can't bear to build them! John_W - I did the same when I first picked up the 'rubbish' kit I referred to at the start. I found out that it was a more significant a/c than I first thought so rather than scrap it I had to finish it. All - a warning . There are occassional appearances of an La176 kit on Ebay. Unless it is the Prop & Jet version do not touch it! You have been warned. Now complete and ready for priming. Note the minimal amount of filler required. John

Internals added to fuselage. Intake and cockpit, U/c bay and jetpipe A few fiddly bits here as small adjustments had to be made to get evrything in. I always have trouble with things like this as bits often do not quite fit and since they are tucked away inside it is difficult to determine where the trouble lies. The instructions call for 10g of 'noseweight' which has to go behind the cockpit. It's nice to find a manufacturer who tells you how much is needed and where to put it. John

I bought a terrible version of this a/c a while ago and used it to virtually scratchbuild a176 (http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234912665-lavochkin-la-176-first-russian-supersonic/?hl=%2Blavochkin+%2B176) I thought it highly unlikely that another kit would appear but that is what has just happened and it looks like a very good one. It will be interesting to compare them. The parts are beautifully moulded in polyurethane resin The first step is to clean up the edge of the moulding at the top edge of the fuselage. With these kits I prefer to fit the wings to the fuselage halves first as I find it easier to control the assembly and get the anhedral correct and the same on each wing John

Bill Gunston's book 'Fightters of the Fifties' published in 1981 gave the length of the NF14 as 'same as the NF12' so not everyone got it wrong. John

I don't know if it's distance lending enchantment or just that I have encountered some pretty awful kits since then but I didn't think that it was THAT bad when I built mine. John

I think that these paper aeroplanes should be subject to a review by a design team familiar with modern aero and thermo dynamics to see how practical they might have been! John

try here http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Phantomtoo/library/F-20%20Tigershark?page=1 John

Thanks Tommy. That build link is incomplete - did the guy ever finish it? I also found your tailhook topic interesting but also depressing as I wanted to build an early version John

Does anyone know if the 1/72 Pavla kit is the same as the Admiral version? John

Impressive job. John

Not the first, the Republic P84 and North American FJ-1 preceded it, but did you mean the first Russian? John

Not the most interesting a/c, aesthetically or for aviation significance, but it fills a gap in my collection of early Russian jets. The kit represents the second prototype. First flown in January 1947 this was the first of a new generation with the engine amidships instead of the earlier ‘pod and boom’ layout. Unfortunately it was handicapped by being powered by the RD 10 engine, a derivative of the Jumo 004 and this, combined with other problems, made it unfit for service. Ironically the later Yak 23, which retained the ‘pod and boom’ layout, but which was powered by the Russian version of the Derwent, went into production. I got this one off ebay fairly cheaply to see what A+V kits were like . Not a particularly brilliant kit but it went together fairly easily except for the canopy which was somewhat misshapen and a devil to fit. The finish is Alclad Dark Aluminium over Alclad Black Base. The aerial is elastic thread from Aeroclub; the first time I have used this and am not 100% happy as I think that it looks more like a rope then a wire. One problem is 'where to put the noseweight?'. I packed some lead under the cockpit and behind the seat but it turned out to be not quite enough so I drilled through the tailcone so that I could drop some more lead in from the rear and filled the (sealed) cockpit with resin swarf! I managed to shift it by turning the airbrush up to maximum pressure and blasting air through the intake whilst giving the model a good shaking - a narrow escape Warning! I ordered a Yak 25 direct from A+V last year but it has yet to appear and I doubt if it ever will so I would advise against trying to get anything from the manufacturer. John

This shows the difference between new and faded Dayglo John

Nice collection from a man after my own heart. They look well built especially as so many are Mach 2 kits. I didn't realise that the X2 and X3 were made by Mach 2. On first sight I assumed that they were the Maintrack Vacforms. John