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Showing results for tags 'Academy MiG-21 1/72'.
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I had this idea of building a Chengdu F-7 of the Namibian Air Force for some time now. Seeing that a 1/72 scale F-7 does not seem to be on the horizon, the original plan was to convert an old Academy MiG-21 that is lying in my stash to the F-7. Problem is that that stash is some 1600 km away from me in the capital of Namibia. And unfortunately I don’t get many a chance to go home to my home town these days (Job, life, you know the story...). Then a local stationary store had one of these Academy kits in stock, and my wife convinced me to acquire it and start to do some model building again, after a 3 year break. So, armed with some nice plans of the F-7 that someone was so kind to put on the internet and the kit I set off to work – and a very big surprise awaited. I know the Academy MiG-21 is not the greatest, but this was an odd one. Somehow the kit parts and the plans did not match up at all. Double checking that I printed the plans to the correct scale, the problem quickly became apparent: who ever scaled the kit used the overall length, including that very long Pitot tube, to scale the fuselage. The result is a VERY long fuselage, bit deeper than required, and approximately the correct width. Due to the stretched and distorted fuselage, the wings were also over-scale, but strangely the horizontal and vertical stabs were pretty much bang-on scale. Go figure.... Considering shelving the project, I spent an evening studying the fuselage, and found a way of salvaging the kit. Since this project would in any case require the liberal use of a hacksaw, I might as well go all the way and go mad on the fuselage. Muhahaha.... This compares the scale plans to the kit fuselage and the parts that need to be trimmed: And this is the result of all the chopping on one half of the fuselage. With the whole other side to compare: And gluing it all together again.... Gives a good idea of the size difference! The Academy kit also models the fuselage with a distinct Coke bottle shape, something that is not really present on the MiG-21. This was corrected by chopping the fuselage (again!) into 3 pieces after it had been assembled and inserting plastic card in the centre section to “fatten” the mid fuselage. Visible in the photo by the white pits of plastic: At this stage one begins to wonder why subject oneself to all of this torture. Well, it is fun. But one day, one day I’m gonna build one of these kits where you put a tube of glue in the box, shake the whole box and out comes a perfect model. One day... Oh, and I am the new guy here; so HELLO!