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I reviewed this kit when it arrived, here, and pretty much started it straight after, here. That was toward the end of Feb, and I started my thread on March 14th, finishing it yesterday. Not fast, but then I'm not a rapid modeller anyway. I finished it though, which is great news, as I've not finished much lately to my embarrassment it's a great little kit, although it does have some foibles. The landing gear benefits from pinning, the exhaust needs thinning down, or replacing if you want to install it later, and the radar whiskers also need some fettling. i had to replace a few decals with those from my stash, but that was because I had a damaged one, and also tried to remove the carrier film too early. oops! It won't win any competitions, and mistakes were made, but I'm quite pleased with it. I never thought we'd have an injection moulded kit of this type though, and now we have. If the war had dragged on longer, it might well have flown, as the prototype the Allies recovered was almost structurally complete, although the engine was a dud. More almost, Luft'46 and paper projects in injection moulded styrene, please Again, thanks for watching. I might try and straighten up those antennae that I thought were straight, but I may also bottle it

Hello everyone! This is Mikro Mir kit, which I really like and highly recommend. I'd venture to say it is the crispiest and most delicate short-run kit I've seen. Mikro Mir's Tu-22 comes close, and I am looking forward to building that one. Having checked the gear details I had serious doubts whether designing PE details for it makes any sense (in the end it did - there are still some tiny PE bits that can further enhance it). I like the slightly irregular, hair thin panel lines, sharp trailing edges of wings and tail; the plastic is good to work with, no big fit issues and it is so lovely tiny. The scene is loosely based on a monument airplane that used to be displayed on a square in Świdnica, Poland. I wanted to build two-seater variant of Yak-23, however Polish Air Force never used two-seater Yak-23s which instills a major and obvious historical inaccuracy. Having this one already onboard I was less worried by some other bits that may or may not fit any particular reference photos. The airplane on display was easily accessible, kids favorite, and as such subject of slow but steady decay and settling on one single "proper" state of the airframe to reproduce is nearly impossible. (decals are custom printed, PE parts used in my usual prototype fashion, some scratchbuilt elements) Here are couple of period photos from Świdnica: And here is the model: Thank you! Leszek

These are all old builds, and in retrospect should have been posted at the beginning of these series. They often represent the first, hesitant steps on scratchbuilding. Here is another from 2008, 11 years ago (original text as posted then): The Coanda Jet Riding the Flames, The dawn of the jet era…in 1910! Romanian Henry Coanda of later “Coanda effect” fame found himself taking off the ground –involuntarily, I am afraid- during a ground test of his revolutionary creation. Given his reduced talents to keep the aircraft aloft, the flight was very short and ended in disaster –although he escaped unscathed- , but a careful observation of a strange phenomena –the flames exiting the combustion chamber adhering firmly along the sides of the fuselage- later became one of the most important contributions from Henri Coanda to physics, specifically to the dynamic of fluids, known as the Coanda effect, The mysterious engine was in concept similar to the one utilized, decades later, in the Caproni-Campini CC-2, that is, a “mixed” engine, with an internal combustion unit driving the compressor stage of the jet. His design, that incorporated a great deal of innovative features, went, for no reason, ignored by mainstream aviation history until recently. The elegant and futuristic lines of his design were hard to resist, so out again with the glue, styrene, filler, sanding stick and the metal bits. Available plans differ from each other and all of them differ from photos, so there you are submerged in the relentless fogs of scratch-building. Hopefully the images will give an idea of the materials and techniques involved in this attempt, but perhaps most important, will render a general sense of the gleaming beauty of the design. Seemingly flying away from a still of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” –by the way, a much later production- its proud pilot could well have been Little Nemo in Slumberland. Some of us are interested in aviation history, some others in the constructional aspects of modeling, and some just love these planes for their diverse, rich, alternative, disconcerting but immensely attractive aesthetics. Whichever the reasons that lead you here, I am sure you will like this first jet of aviation history.

It has been in the works long enough. Resin, vacu canopy and decals from Miniwing. Cannon fairings courtesy of Master. Brass by Shelf Oddity, which means it is the test article for the brass parts - an awkward way to promote our product and equally awkward way to excuse imperfections. First two photos with my trusty companion, who did the part chopping: and lent a helping brush: Now, the Attacker himself: "We there yet?" Thanks for watching!

On a rare occasion I do finish a model. This time it came out like that: (some final adjustments:) and here we go: Ok, enough. Off to the scrapyard Full story can be found here http://www.kampfgruppe144.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3271. Short story: Panel lines (Matchbox-style) were filled, some brass bits from upcoming Shelf Oddity set added. And then there was miserable process of filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and... which seemed to have no end. But finally I got to dust off my airbrush. Metal parts are AK Xtreme Metal (easy and foolproof). Kit decals turned out to be excellent (save for NACA tail band), panel lines were reinstated using pencil and shaky hand and this is it.

My next entry for the group build is the 1/72 Yak-15 from Amodel, bought at the list price from Hannants (6.50 pounds): The instructions (not shown) proudly proclaim it to be the first Soviet aircraft with a turbojet. On to the sprues and decals: This will be the third Amodel kit I've built, and hopefully the third I finish. This is a warm-up for the Yak-28PP I have in the stash, and I also want to build a Yak-1 (Amodel) to examine the family resemblance. There are two schemes: one overall red, and one green-over-blue, which is the scheme I plan to do. As the photos show (or not!), there's a fair amount of cleaning, sanding and what I call therapeutic fettling to be done. My Scandinavian Spitfires will have to wait...