Lavochkin La 176 - Prop & Jet resin 1/72

[John R]

I bought a terrible version of this a/c a while ago and used it to virtually scratchbuild a176

(http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234912665-lavochkin-la-176-first-russian-supersonic/?hl=%2Blavochkin+%2B176)

I thought it highly unlikely that another kit would appear but that is what has just happened and it looks like a very good one.

It will be interesting to compare them.

The parts are beautifully moulded in polyurethane resin

The first step is to clean up the edge of the moulding at the top edge of the fuselage.

With these kits I prefer to fit the wings to the fuselage halves first as I find it easier to control the assembly and get the anhedral correct and the same on each wing

John

Edited May 2, 2013 by John R

[John Thompson]

All of the Prop & Jet stuff is amazing - Musa Zekoreev is a true craftsman. He's been working on a 1/72 I-153, but he wanted the rib/fabric detail to be perfect, so he temporarily switched horses to do an HB-6, just to practice mastering biplane wings:

http://propjet.ucoz.ru/forum/9-104-6

John

[John R]

Internals added to fuselage. Intake and cockpit, U/c bay and jetpipe

A few fiddly bits here as small adjustments had to be made to get evrything in. I always have trouble with things like this as bits often do not quite fit and since they are tucked away inside it is difficult to determine where the trouble lies.

The instructions call for 10g of 'noseweight' which has to go behind the cockpit. It's nice to find a manufacturer who tells you how much is needed and where to put it.

John

[Killingholme]

I have a couple of Prop&Jet kits in the stash. I often just take them out to look at at- really beautiful kits!

Will

[John_W]

I love a thread that makes me Google

Nice build.

[John R]

Killinghome - why don't you mount them and hang them on the wall if you can't bear to build them!

John_W - I did the same when I first picked up the 'rubbish' kit I referred to at the start. I found out that it was a more significant a/c than I first thought so rather than scrap it I had to finish it.

All - a warning . There are occassional appearances of an La176 kit on Ebay. Unless it is the Prop & Jet version do not touch it! You have been warned.

Now complete and ready for priming. Note the minimal amount of filler required.

John

[general melchett]

Great choice John, I also have a few of the old P&J kits awaiting their time in the sun. As for the cheap'n' nasty old kit...well I have one of those too, the Skareby jobbie............'orrible but apart from the totally unusable canopy, not the worst kit I've ever seen, (though close). This looks much nicer.

I'm waiting for a Unicraft LA-200 to arrive which should be 'interesting' if going by the mixed quality of other Unicrafts that I've built over the years is anything to go by.

I managed to pick up Yefim Gordons superb Red Star Lavochkin Last Jets book for a fiver at Cosford recently, which is an invaluable source of reference for these obscure types......covers the 176 with nice cockpit phots thrown in..

[John R]

I'm waiting for a Unicraft LA-200 to arrive which should be 'interesting' if going by the mixed quality of other Unicrafts that I've built over the years is anything to go by.

I managed to pick up Yefim Gordons superb Red Star Lavochkin Last Jets book for a fiver at Cosford recently, which is an invaluable source of reference for these obscure types......covers the 176 with nice cockpit phots thrown in..

I wondered why Musa (Zakoreev for those who don't know who runs Prop & Jet) hadn't done a 200.

The Red Star book is what I used for my 'scratchbuilt ' version. It's fascinating to see all the prototypes the Soviets produced. When I was growing up the Mig 15, La 15 and Yak 23 seemed to be the limits of our knowledge. I asked Musa if the ordinary Russians knew any more than we did and it seemed that they knew even less!

John

Edited May 7, 2013 by John R

[adlersieg]

if the ordinary Russians knew any more than we did and it seemed that they knew even less!

John

True story John. Panzerwaffe is the most popular trend of scale modelling here, but not early soviet jets. Sad but true

Edited May 7, 2013 by adlersieg

[John R]

Had a bit of a problem with the canopy. Previous models by Prop&Jet had very nice vacform (oxymoron?) canopies but now a clear resin one was provided which was not up to the standard of the rest of the kit, being slightly out of shape. I did consider trying to reshape it with hot water but decided to see how it looks when fitted and if I can live with it.

Model with canopy fitted, rear pitot from 4mm tube, primed and sprayed with Alclad black base.

John

Edited May 15, 2013 by John R

[John R]

U/c fitted. One remarkable thing about Prop&Jet kits is the way things fit together. The wheels (round!) fit straight on to the stub axle and that fits into the u/c bay at the correct angle because the u/c legs have a flange at the top that mates with the u/c bay.

However I'm not sure that they got the length of the retraction struts quite right and the instructions are not clear about where they fit.

John

Edited May 20, 2013 by John R

[John R]

Final steps were to

1. Add the silver ring to the fuselage. Made from a strip of Bare Metal Foil.

2. Add some home-made decals to the underside of the nose to represent the blast panels.

3. Make and fit the pitot tubes. The one on the fin was 0.4mm tube with a 2mm rod inset at the tip. The under wing pitot was a pin bits attached with CA. The support was plastic sheet and the pitot was 2mm rod held on by flattened 0.4mm tube. Very fiddly

4. Attach aerial 'wire'. I had used some elastic thread from Aeroclub on a previous model and thought that it looked too much like rope but this time I found that it consisted of many strands which could be reduced to give a more reasonable thickness.

One thing I did differently from the instructions was making the cover for the light that is fitted within the flow divider in the intake. Clear tape is suggested as the cover. On the 168 I made previously, I used a folded piece of plastic bottle. This time I carved a piece of clear sprue to shape to match the shape of the inlet divider. I am still not happy with either.

Noe 'Ready for Inspection'

John