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An old Yakovlev Yak-42 joined to the Aeroflot fleet. Brings back my old memories about an era of the civil aviation. Simple OOB - Eastern Express 1:144 kit. Not the best kit ever so far. But unfortunately there is no other available kit released recently. Rusair's resin kit looks like not exist anymore.

Amodel is to release in 2016 a 1/72nd Yakovlev Yak-42 "Clobber" kit - ref.72342 Source: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234997175-amodel-new-172nd-1144th-kits-in-2016-update/ V.P.

Sometimes it’s nice to take a stroll off the beaten track and that’s exactly what I’ve done with my latest offering, the Rus-Air resin Yak-42D in the simple, attractive scheme of Kazan-based Tulpar Air. I’m no expert on Russian airliners and I haven’t done any checks on dimensional accuracy but to my eyes the Rus-Air kit really captures the character of the Yak-42. The kit itself is gorgeous and one of the easiest kits in any medium I’ve ever built. In the usual Russian style the fuselage is split vertically like an injection-moulded kit but with a separate one-piece fin and central intake. There was a small bit of slightly awkward filling below the intake and the split engine pylons were a minor irritation (think Airfix BAC 1-11) but otherwise everything assembled easily helped by Rus-Air’s thoughtful provision of marks to drill for locating pegs. In fact the only issue I had was with the undercarriage. I managed to break both main legs while I was cutting away the surplus resin and had to resort to pinning with fuse wire. The side struts were useless and I replaced them with plastic strip. Enthusiasts of super-detailing could go to town on the undercarriage but in light of experience I decided to play safe and content myself with drilling out the torque links (very carefully!) and adding lamps to the nose leg which I promptly lost and had to fabricate a replacement. Needless to say, as soon as the replacement was finished the original part turned up. Although they provide a choice of several schemes including Cubana and Aeroflot, the kit decals are thick, matt, yellowish and utterly horrible. They went straight into the bin. The Tulpar Air decals are by Ascensio. I had seen rather mixed reports about Ascensio decals but I found them straightforward to use and anybody with previous experience of laser printed decals should get on fine. Ascensio are one of the very few manufacturers who provide after-market decals for the Yak-42 so we should be grateful to them even if the decals aren’t without their flaws. Although the sheet says it was designed for the Rus-Air model, some items such as the windscreen and the large grey anti-glare panel (which I ended up over-painting) bore only a passing resemblance to the kit and required significant modification. Ascensio have mistakenly printed the main cabin door the same size as the other doors instead of the bottom edge being noticeably lower. I dealt with that by using a section from one of the doors provided for the alternative livery on the sheet. It’s actually dark grey rather than blue but the subterfuge isn’t noticeable on the model. The decals generally are a little stiff and virtually impervious to decal solvent. Drawdecal’s trick of pressing into place with a cloth dipped in just-off-the-boil water helped considerably. On the plus side they are very robust and will take a lot of abuse as I discovered when I had to reposition one of the Skynet Aero titles after it was firmly stuck. Mistreatment like that would have made most other decals disintegrate but the Ascensio decal took it in its stride. Overall I was much more impressed with the decals than I had expected. I kept weathering to an absolute minimum since all the photos I could find of RA-42555 in this livery showed her looking immaculate. That might be because Tulpar Air, apparently a rather dodgy operation, was grounded before their four Yak-42s had time to get dirty! I enjoyed building the Yak-42 so much that I have bought a second one to keep it company. I intend to finish it in Kras Air livery (again by Ascensio) but with the forthcoming Group build and various other ongoing projects it will be a while before I get round to it. Thanks for looking and as always constructive criticism is welcome. Dave G .... and with the PAS An-72