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Mig-31B/BS Upgrades for AMK 1:48


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Mig-31B/BS Upgrades for AMK
1:48 Eduard


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AMK followed up their excellent BM/BSM kit (I built one here with the slightly earlier variant, the B/BS, which I'm also supposed to be building, and although I've not had much time for it lately, you can see that one here too. The sets for the BSM have been adapted, and reissued now for the later boxing, and as usual with Eduard's Photo-Etch (PE) and Mask sets, they arrive in a flat resealable package, with a white backing card protecting the contents and the instructions that are sandwiched between.


Airframe Set (49781)
This is two fret set, one of which is nickel plated and pre-painted to be used within the cockpit, the other being mostly used to upgrade the exhaust cans. One of the most notable items missing from the kit were the seatbelts, which this set rectifies with pre-painted belts, ejector handles and some small parts on the headbox. The instrument panels are all replaced by multi-layer laminations that are again pre-painted, as are the side console parts, which require the removal of small sections of the kit parts. The instruments are different, as you'd expect with fewer MFDs and more of the "old skool" dials and screens from the older version.

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The most substantial part of the update however is a complete replacement set of the inner exhaust "petals", which requires the removal of the kit's rendition from its ring, enlarging of the hole, then the rolling of the new petals into a cylinder and insertion in the newly enlarged hole. After that 18 actuators are added to the outside and 27 tiny blow-out parts to the inside where they would hang down under gravity with engines off. A new set of afterburner rings are also included, which sit deep in the fuselage and can just be seen on the finished model. In use the exhaust interior with its drop-in petals are very effective as you can see if you peruse my build above, but the burner-ring didn't fit too well and had to be discarded, although at that depth in the engine it doesn't matter much.

The other parts include some fine details for the main gear bays, oleo-scissor skins, nose gear mudguard skins, rings for the landing lights, and a number of additional sensors and aerials around the nose, plus vanes on the pitot probe. Finally, a gaggle of static wicks are supplied to replace those easy-to-knock-off kit ones.

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Zoom! Set (FE781)
This reduced content set just includes the pre-painted and nickel plated sheet as seen above, for those that are primarily interested in the cockpit's instruments. The reduced price also makes it more attractive for many reasons.



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Masks (EX523)
Supplied on a sheet of yellow kabuki tape, these pre-cut masks supply you with a full set of masks for the canopy, with compound curved handled by using frame hugging masks, while the highly curved gaps are in-filled with either liquid mask or offcuts from the background tape. In addition you get a set of masks for the landing lights, both sides of the blast shield between pilots, and the wayfinding light on the refuelling probe fairing.



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Also, don't forget the wheel set we reviewed here, which both variants share use of.

Review sample courtesy of
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