Piotrek.S.

Superb!

You are both right. Mastercraft and Smer are old Pantera spures. Also sold as EasternExpress and few others.

"Painting 1916-1918. Decks were left black as earlier. All vertical surfaces of a hull and quarter-deck painted mid grey (quickly faded to light grey). Black panel left in midship as deforming camouflage. At war`s end very often this panel was over-painted just like other sideboard surfaces. It is not sure if V161 was painted this way at wars`s end." Hope this helps...

Italeri`s Hind also needs some stretching. Tail boom should be 11 mm longer.

Bis, MF, R...whatever you buy with Fujimi logo on the box you will always get bis model. Differences between R/MF and bis are to found HERE. Japanese model is quite nice, got crisp details, nice clear parts and it resembles the original after all. Unfortunately there are some "bugs' to fix, namely: - flusage is to long circa 5 mm, what`s even worse to make it proper you have to cut it like original was dismantled than cut off a 5 mm slice and glue it together, - stabilizers are out of this planet - use a spare one from Kopro/Mastercraft/Condor/EasternExpress kit or buy Quickboost replacement, - if you plan to do MF/SM/M/R buy a resin spine/tail resin correction set, - MLG wheels are little to big and flusage wells are too shallow, - ailerons shape needs correction, - some panel lines are in wrong places, some are missing. Unfortunately for this model Zvezda has released their bis model witch needs only small panel lines correction to be best 1/72 bis OOB kit.

Hi! You can count me in! What it will be? I don`t know yet. One question: Soviet planes in foreign service - is it mean only planes built in ex-Soviet Union factories? Example: Most of An-2 were made in Poland, also Mi-2 helos used by DDR, Czech, Hungary, Bulgaria and USSR were of Polish origin. Czech did MiG-21F13, MiG-15, MiG-15UTI, MiG-19. Poland did MiG-15, MiG-15UTI and MiG-17. East Germany produced Il-14. So where is the key? Soviet planes made by Soviet hands or Soviet projects no matter were it was build?

Than how You explain anti gas ingestion plates fitted to PFs and PFMs from East Germany? Firing from a GP-9 pod do not causes such problems like build-in GSz-23. What so ever there is know photo of Cuban R type Fishbed with these plates. M and MF are export versions of S and SM with downgraded equipment, weapon and engine. Degree of downgrading depended to trust of Soviets to their allies. I.e. Arab a.c almost always were poorer than WarPac planes and these were very often downgraded versions of machines for Soviet pilots.

New engine with larger air consumption needed bigger intake, cutting a "slice" from air intake lip gave extra mm in diameter that was needed. Some batches of KM-1 ejection seats were all black (there are pic of MiG-21bis/UM and MiG-23 with black seats). Yep, but these were exchangeable, you can see MF`s with wheels from bis and vice versa. Especially around wings and underbelly part. - new engine causes new burning can, - minor changes in cockpit, - bis version coded "bis SAU" has additional antennas in front and on the top of the fin, - bis can carry R-60, R-3R and R-55 AAMs (MF can be modified to carry R-60), - some sources denies that MF was capable of using R-13 AAM,

Spines of PF and PFM are the same. These two versions are almost lookalikes. So... First, we have a MiG-21 F13 version. Facts: small spine, narrow tail fin, Pitot boom under intake in centre position, small diameter of intake (no radar), parachute placed in a lower part of flusage, SK-1 ejection seat, one piece canopy opened forward, two pylons, Fowler type flaps. Second, we have MiG-21 PF version. Facts: spine half wide half small (hump covers a additional tank), narrow tail fin, Pitot boom over intake in centre position, large diameter of intake (radar), parachute placed in a lower part of flusage, SK-1 ejection seat, one piece canopy opened forward, two pylons, Fowler type flaps. Third, we have MiG-21 PFM version. Facts: spine half wide half small, wide tail fin, Pitot boom over intake in centre position, large diameter of intake (radar), parachute placed in root of a tail fin, KM-1 ejection seat, canopy divided in two pieces, opens starboard. two pylons, normal flaps with SPS. Fourth we have MiG-21 R/M/MF (there are some differences between these three models i.e. radar, weapon but main shape is the same) Facts: wide spine from cockpit till tail fin (enlarged hump fuel tank), wide tail fin, Pitot boom over intake moved to starboard position, large diameter of intake (radar), parachute placed in root of a fin, KM-1 ejection seat, canopy divided in two pieces. four pylons, normal flaps with SPS. Pic of R type Fifth is a MiG-21bis. Facts: spine even wider and deeper tham MF`s it ends in a place that parachute fairing starts to say in simple words (again enlarged hump tank), wide tail fin, Pitot boom over intake moved to starboard position, diameter of intake circa 60 mm elnarged to previous R/M/MF versions (in a 1/72 scale it`s a less than 1 mm), parachute placed in root of a fin, KM-1 ejection seat, canopy divided in two pieces. four pylons, normal flaps with SPS. I`ve described only things that are easy to spot on to decipher correct version. Hope this helps

Devil is in detail:) Till PF version Fishbed had Fowler type flaps. From PFM there are normal flaps with SPS system (on the flusage near flaps are located round panels). Weapon pylons under wings: two pylons with PFM and earlier, four with S, R versions and later. Note that external pylons for R version are only "wet" pylons (only for PTB 490 litres tanks) are slightly different than normal weapon pylons. Also panel lines, anntenas are different on i.e. MF and bis wings. P.S. To reinforce firepower of older version of Fishbeds especially PFM Poland developed twin rail for R-3 Atoll AAM`s. Here is pic of Polish PFM Fishbed with four Atoll AAM`s and GP-9 gunpod. This modification was used with Polish and East German Fishbeds. .

Well, IMHO Airfix has better shaped air ducts and engine nacelles. You can call this operation Fulcrumstein and it`s dedicated to MiG-29 freaks:) Typical pure Italeri MiG will need some changes in engine nozzles, new panel lines on upper surfaces. Some detailing in cockpit area will be nice. Despite this Italian Fulcrum is still best in 1/72 (9.12 version).

Hi! I`m a fan of a theory that best Fulcrum (9.12) in 1/72 will be "Italfix". That`s an Italeri`s Fulcrum with Airfix engine nacelles. However Airfix kit is rather hard to get (here in Poland), so Italeri is acceptable.

Thats a nice one Lovely camo too.

Cutting Edge sets for Fitter maybe looking good with crisp detail but if you wanna measure it it`s a total loss. IMHO waste of money unfortunately.

Correct, instrument panel and switches panels are black, rest is grey. As you see on the floor shades may vary.