John Thompson

The Yak-9 is a ghastly mess, both accuracy- and flash-wise, and should be replaced with a brand new mold! John

No defence required! I just never knowingly miss a chance to boost Russian aircraft or the kits of those manufacturers who are willing to produce them - thanks for giving me an opportunity! John

Amodel 1/72 Yak-3/VK-107A, Yak-9U. and Yak-9P: http://modelism.airforce.ru/reviews/ru/yak-3_9-amodel/index.htm Yes, that's 1/72, not 1/24! John

If you know the URL, you might still be able to retrieve it via the Wayback Machine: http://archive.org/web/ John

Well, thank you very much, Petr - that's very kind! I'm glad that the KP La-5FN is going to be upgraded - at last we'll have a good 1/72 La-5FN kit. John

Yes, please, Petr! John

I was going to suggest the Yak-9T (37mm) and the Yak-9K (45mm), but now I'm afraid I'll just be accused of having "cannon envy"... John

Okay, okay - maybe 1 or 2 percent was a bit too easy, considering how I already knew about a few errors myself. Regardless, I still respect Hans-Heiri Stapfer for his work as a pioneer of this subject in the English language. John

Don't harsh the Stapfer. In pre-Internet days, those few of us with an interest in Soviet aircraft and who couldn't read Russian welcomed his "In Action" titles as almost our only source of information. These books are still useful. Inaccuracies and long-perpetuated myths? I'd be surprised if the error content was more than 1 or 2 percent. How many of those who criticize Stapfer's work today knew more than he did back when he wrote his stuff? What specific inaccuracies and myths are we talking about? John

It's a Czech forum thread on the subject of the Eduard MiG-15/MiG-15bis Dual Combo kit. The page numbers are reversed compared to what you're used to seeing, with page 1 being most current and (at the time I looked) page 12 being the first or oldest (dated 28.09.2013, or Sept.28/13). Go to the first page (whatever number it may have at the time you look) and scroll down a bit - there you'll see sprue photos, etc., of the kit. I haven't checked, but if AICZ says it's a review build, then the later pages (i.e., pages 11 and lower) probably show the kit being built! John

Seems ludicrous, doesn't it - a government agency responsible for spending (or misspending) millions of the taxpayers' hard-earned quid hassling a decal manufacturer about reproducing artwork that was probably created unofficially by one of the groundcrew, although I suppose things are more closely controlled these days when it comes to aircraft decorations. On the subject of copyright violation, copying decals seems a smaller problem than downloading copyrighted text from on-line sites that specialize in that sort of thing. Maybe I'd feel differently if I was a decal designer, though. John

He must have been flashing back to the Flying Burrito Brothers... John

I'm very sorry to hear about Mike Eacock - thank you, John, for that well-written obituary. I feel as though I knew him, although only slightly - back in the pre-Internet days, I ordered the Skybirds 86 MB.5 from an ad he placed in SAM. Mike took the time to include with it a very kind personal note in which he mentioned his time on the Avro Arrow project. My condolences to his children and his friends! John

My suggestion (which I'm sure I've already made, but...) seems totally unrealistic among all these so-logical Defiants and Beaufighters; maybe I should just start my own thread so as not to bother anyone. Regardless, here it is - replace the ancient 1/72 Yak-9 with a new, accurate one!!! Hahahahahaha! John

Excellent suggestion in 1/72, too! I'd very much like to see new 1/72 kits of the Yak-1b and Yak-9, the La-5 family, the La-9 and La-11, I-153, and I-16 types 5 and 10. I agree with your goldmine comment as well. I don't understand what makes Russian WWII fighters so uninteresting to kit manufacturers. Lingering Cold War animosity, perhaps? John

Maybe Trumpeter and Hobby Boss should just stick to manufacturing "Eggplanes", then. Don't get me wrong - I'm not "entrenched" about this. I think I've bought my share of kits, disappointing or not, from both companies. If either of them releases a new kit of an aircraft that interests me, I'll buy it. In fact, I already knew about the Do-335 props before I bought the kit (I'm certain I already posted about that error, which was visible in sprue shots, as soon as the kit was put up on HB's web site), but I grabbed it and paid my money anyway because I like the type and I knew I could correct it. John

Blame it on Wenlock and Mandeville. I wonder how many small children were psychologically scarred by the mere sight of those grotesque things. Whatever creatively bankrupt organization got paid for dreaming up those horrors should be held legally accountable. John

Hobby Boss and Trumpeter deserve all the criticism they get. It's ridiculous to dismiss some of the criticism as "rivet counting" - the new HB easy-build Dornier Do-335 has two propellers. One of them has the pitch of the three blades backwards, while the other has two blades with one pitch and the third blade opposite! This is hardly a subtle error; it plainly suggests they just don't give a damn. To fix it? Just substitute the propellers from the - what? Forty years old? - Frog Do-335 two-seater. Maybe not as cleanly molded as Hobby Boss with their multi-piece "slide mold technology", but at least they're accurate, despite their age! John

There seems to be a perception that kits of Russian aircraft don't sell very well, although Amodel and one or two others certainly do well enough at it. A year or two ago, AZ had a Yak-1b on their future release list, but for whatever reason, they changed their minds and decided to give Fly Models the chance to release it instead. That probably means it will never happen. John

So, I'm to understand that, of all the many, many late Bf-109 kits currently available in 1/72, none of them is adequate, except maybe the expensive Fine Molds ones? Okay, I'll buy that (grudgingly); I'm with V-P - go on AZ (or Revell? Don't they already have a 1/72 Me-109G?) - have fun with the 109, as long as you follow it up with a really good 1/72 Yak-9 and a La-5 series! And please, don't anyone ask, "What's wrong with the (measly one or two) Yak-9 or La-5 kits already available?" - that just leads to "What's wrong with the umptydozen Me-109F/G/K etc., etc.?" and then nobody gets what he wants. Even though it's far more likely to be you guys than me... John

Well, that's RAF Great Patriotic - sorry, World War II, colours for you - a complete minefield of confusion and misunderstanding. Even black is not really black, it's... something else... John

You're overlooking the distinction between "kitbashing" (a good thing which results in models of aircraft which the kit manufacturers didn't think of) and "kit bashing" (a bad thing which results in threads like this one). John

Ten thousand kits, and some of them are Russian?! You've got my attention! Trouble is, to some of us, Tamiya or Hasegawa or Eduard/Special Hobby are the less desirable kits. I think the OP is going to need a lot of help to determine what's desirable (i.e., valuable) and what isn't. Just going by brand names isn't going to work in a situation like this. John

Until someone smarter than me comes along, let me try to help. The colours you're interested in are: AMT-1 (light greyish brown or tan) AMT-4 (medium to dark green, with perhaps a slight olive tone to it) AMT-12 (dark grey, almost black, with a hint of blue) AMT-7 (the underside colour - medium greyish blue) A-14 (the cockpit colour - often called steel grey) I don't know of a Gunze/Akan conversion chart, unfortunately. This table, which includes some FS approximations, should be helpful, though: http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/colors/color-table.html The colours you want are about 1/3 to 1/2 way down; A-14 is close to the bottom as part of the section headed "Interior Colors". FWIW, I've used RAF Ocean Grey for A-14, and nobody died. Regarding Il-2 camouflage schemes, this may be helpful with a bit of careful study: http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/il-2/il-2.htm The "Il-2m" is here (early camouflage): http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/il-2/il2-camo/il-2m/il2m-early1943.htm ...and here (late camouflage): :http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/il-2/il2-camo/il-2m/il2m-late1943.htm For Ale, the Tamiya kit is the so-called "Il-2m-3" - it's on this page: http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/il-2/il2-camo/il-2m3/il2m3-camo.htm John

Assuming there's any serious interest in using any part of this kit to build an actual model, please reread my previous post (#5 above) - the nose is too short to house a 2-stage blown Merlin. The nose length matches exactly the nose length of the recent Airfix Mk.I/II; it's shorter than the Airfix Mk.IX by about 2mm. Discussion of details of the Mk,IX Spitfire and its Merlin 66 is pointless. The Merlin XX that was originally offered is the engine you want, just as Revell provided it. If you feel like modifying it, make a Merlin 45 and build a Spitfire Mk.V. John