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Red Bird (1/72 Academy IL-2 single-seater)


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"In this battle mercy or considerations of international law is false. They are a danger to our own safety and to the rapid pacification of the conquered territories."

 

-- Richtlinien für die Behandlung politischer Kommissare [Guidelines for the Treatment of Political Commissars], issued on 6 June 1941 by OKW

 

 

Children cried in the hospital. At the gates
A truck as big as a train car opened its black mouth.

As they shoved him into the jaws of the death van[...]

The enemy mob was merciless and black.
But the nation heard this child's cry.

And the Red Army soldiers heard the cry in battle:
They marched forth vowing to avenge the children's lives.

 

-- Vladimir Ivanovich Ladiagin and Stepan Petrovich Shchipachev, "Volodia Zuzuev", c. September 1943. Volodia Zuzuev was one of the thousands killed in Krasnodar by Einsatzgruppe D between 1942 and 1943.

 

"You have let down our country and our Red Army. You have the nerve not to manufacture IL-2s until now. Our Red Army now needs IL-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats. Shenkman produces one IL-2 a day and Tretyakov builds one or two MiG-3s daily. It is a mockery of our country and the Red Army. I ask you not to try the government's patience, and demand that you manufacture more ILs. This is my final warning."

 

-- Iosif Stalin, telegram to State Aviation Factory 18 managers at Voronezh, December 1941

 

 

For my next build, I'll be doing Academy's 1/72 Il-2 Shturmovik single-seater.

 

29883464888_c0bbfdc23e_h.jpg20180730_230214 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

I was only vaguely aware that any Il-2s were built as single-seaters, and know frankly almost nothing about them, but had fortuitously picked up a copy of Learstang's book on the IL-2 when Amazon was selling it in the twenty dollar range (a space where many of my impulse buys take place), and it has a lot of information aimed square at the modeller. 

 

So how did I end up with an IL-2? Well, it was a birthday gift from my coworker, who's Russian, as in she's from Perm, near the Urals, and married an American she met while she was attending graduate school in the USA, which is how she ended up here. Anyway, I received it on March 15 for my birthday and she's been nagging me about it ever since. Normally it can be years before I get to something in the stash, but I figured I might as well try and get this one out of the way so I can get back to the serious business of building Spitfires, lest our sun explode. I welcome any advice you all have throughout the build, for I am but a naif. 

 

Right off the bat, my ignorance killed me, because I thought the single-seater all-metal IL-2 was the sporty coupe model in the late-war period, but no! It is in fact the earliest and least covered in glory of all of the IL-2 versions available in kit form. Unfortunately I bought a set of late-war Soviet ground attack aircraft paints from Akan, so I just now had to order the different colours used on all-metal aircraft early on, A-18 Blue and A-19 Green (and they won't ship until next week, as the Linden Hill Imports guy is on holiday), which I'll need to do this bird:

 

43705843592_fb11d15eec_h.jpg20180730_230404 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Mercifully it's only two colours, and I have the interior colour (a sort of wan grey) in the set I bought. So I think we can make a start of it, once I figure out what thinner Akan lacquers take. 

 

 

 

 

 

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Just now, John D.C. Masters said:

I am eager to see how this Academy kit stacks up.  they are usually short on quality, yet there are not  lot of 1/72 options out there...

It looks quite good "in the box" (famous last words). My understanding is that it was an unreleased Accurate Miniatures mold.

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I seem to rememer @Learstang rated it quite highly, and I think the decals - usually a famous bugbear with Academy kits - are produced by Cartograph in this case, and offer quite a lot of different options...

 

Anyway looking forward to your progress mate, good luck :)

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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1 minute ago, Stew Dapple said:

I think the decals - usually a famous bugbear with Academy kits - are produced by Cartograph in this case, and offer quite a lot of different options...

Indeed they are, and they do. I plumped for the one with the most patriotic slogan on the side, because if we've learned nothing else this century, it's that the biggest talkers are also the biggest doers. 

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2 hours ago, Roger Newsome said:

This is a bit of a coincidence, I acquired one of these kits on Sunday evening and the very same book! 

Needless to say I'll be following. 

Roger.

Yup, although in my case, I've had the kit & book for a while now, still keen to see how it all comes together. :)

Steve.

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-  In the first year of WW II and may be later, most Soviet machines, whatever Fighters or bombers were painted  green with black curvy stripes on the upper and rather deep clear blue unders, the refrence from AKAN is AMT 7 for this one, for the black no problem provide it is matt for the green a 34092 could make it , if you are not satisfied with shade your have the possibility to cover the whole thing with a rather weathered white  winter snow camo.

- AKAN can be bought directly on their web site. Paypal accepted.

-If you have the possibility to get White Ensign paint  you can use ref WEMCC ACS 01 for the blue and WEMCC ACS18 for the green, or search for the corresponding references  in the F.S;

- My best regards to your colleague

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Nice to see my book is selling amongst the cognoscenti! And it's guaranteed to be nearly, completely accurate! PC, although this is a nice kit, I'm not sure that any of the decals are correct for a metal-fuselage version. Also, the callout for 'Dark Earth' in the colours is rubbish, and should be black. On the other hand, this kit and its two-seater brother are the only Il-2 kits in 1/72nd scale to get the cartridge ejector chutes done correctly, something which even the excellent Tamiya kit bodges. At any rate, the armament as depicted in the kit, with 23-mm cannons outboard of the machine guns, was used on the later versions with the wooden fuselage. With this kit I'm doing an early Barbarossa victim, with the metal rear fuselage, but I bought some aftermarket decals, and I'm having to redo the armament. Best of luck with yours and I shall follow with great interest!

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

Edited by Learstang
Slight change.
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32 minutes ago, Learstang said:

Nice to see my book is selling amongst the cognoscenti! And it's guaranteed to be nearly, completely accurate! PC, although this is a nice kit, I not sure that any of the decals are correct for a metal-fuselage version. Also, the callout for 'Dark Earth' in the colours is rubbish, and should be black. On the other hand, this kit and its two-seater brother are the only Il-2 kits in 1/72nd scale to get the cartridge ejector chutes done correctly, something which even the excellent Tamiya kit bodges. At any rate, the armament as depicted in the kit, with 23-mm cannons outboard of the machine guns, was used on the later versions with the wooden fuselage. With this kit I'm doing an early Barbarossa victim, with the metal rear fuselage, but I bought some aftermarket decals, and I'm having to redo the armament. Best of luck with yours and I shall follow with great interest!

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

-Hi Learstang,

- What's about your book ? availability, price, payment ,postage to EU ?

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Thank you very much for the enquiry, IPMS19! I don't know about France, but it is available from Amazon UK for 35 Pounds Sterling (and the site shows it for even less through non-Amazon booksellers). There are currently 4 available directly from Amazon UK, with more available (27 new and used, from other booksellers). I do hope you purchase it and happy reading!

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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An IL-2 should be in my stash, but for some reason isn't. I'll tag along to see how the Academy kit fares, and for the always entertaining commentary from PC.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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@Learstang book also available from the Bookdepositry, my go to for overseas titles, their inclusive shipping price is often, though not always,  cheaper than through Amazon, even though they're an Amazon subsidiary. It can also be worth checking on Abebooks.

Steve.

Edited by stevehnz
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2 hours ago, Navy Bird said:

An IL-2 should be in my stash, but for some reason isn't. I'll tag along to see how the Academy kit fares, and for the always entertaining commentary from PC.

 

Cheers,

Bill

 

No Il-2!? You are now no longer my friend, Bill! Shocking! It will be interesting to see how PC gets on with the somewhat intricate central wing arrangement, and the wing-fuselage joint, always something of an adventure with every Il-2 I've ever built (and I've built a few). Steve, thank you for the extra suggestions on where to find my magnificent tome on the Shturmovik!

 

Regards,

 

Jason

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So I got to work painting the interior, which is a grey the Soviets called A-14. It appears that some Il-2s (and the biggest shock of my life so far is that Russians say it "Ill-two", not "Eye-ell-two", as my coworker informed me with more than a hint of asperity) had black interior portions, some had unpainted aluminium, and so forth and so on. However, I choose to believe that the glorious Stakhanovite socialist front fighters of the Soviet Union, fighting the battle as workers behind the front just as the Red Eagles of the air force fought it in the air above it, would have found time to give this aircraft a uniform coat of paint about its innermost parts. 

 

41966552030_20559f382d_h.jpg20180731_213521 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

The main part of the cockpit (which then goes atop the wing spars and above and abaft the radiator on the lower center wing section) is pretty impressively detailed for a mainstream kit of this type:

 

41966550500_2e02ea7fe3_h.jpg20180731_215257 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

41966550340_f281b57bee_h.jpg20180731_215307 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Happily, the Eduard masking set comes with masks for the fronts and backs of the (hopefully) armoured glass windows in either side of the bulkhead. You can't see it very well in the photo, but the control column is a sickly green, as virtually every picture I've seen of an Il-2 cockpit has it thus.

 

Immediately behind the bulkhead will go a fuel tank, which the instructions say to paint black with silver metal bands encircling it. I'm not sure that's right, so I've held off for now.

 

43727057352_5172bbf05c_h.jpg20180731_215948 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

The instrument panel is a clear part, which would be amazingly useful if there were a masking set for it or something, but there isn't. and I'll just put the kit instrument dial decal over it.

 

43058875594_3aadb4aac0_h.jpg20180731_215618 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

There's also this handrail thingummy, which the instructions again suggest to paint black. Anyone know if that's correct?

 

41966550390_a5c452a888_h.jpg20180731_215325 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

Looking ahead a tiny bit, I espy a tremendously stupid engineering choice. The exhaust stacks need to be inserted before the fuselage is closed up:

 

43058875544_8c76af87eb_h.jpg20180731_215600 by Edward IX, on Flickr

 

This is dumb and bad and wrong, and I don't know why anyone does this, unless it's just because they own stock in one of several companies that produces overpriced modelling masking solutions. It would have been so easy to not do this in a way that suggested someone on the design team had recently been stunned by a heavy object dropped from a great height.

 

In any case, my work's annual meeting starts tomorrow, and I'll be scurrying around doing things for that through the weekend, so expect few to no updates during this time, or if I do work on the kit in my overtired state, stupendous disasters.

 

 

 

 

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I think if it were a self-sealing fuel tank (which I would hope it was) then a black rubber top-layer would certainly be feasible. Regarding the handrail, from the position of it I think it must be the stabiliser control bar; if it is I still have no idea whether that makes it more likely that it should be black, or not, but once the cockpit is closed up, who will know? ;) 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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So glad it’s an ill-2 not an eye-ell-2 - 48 years of ignorance vindicated.

 

Internals look nice. I know nothing of glorious soviet aviation (except how to say IL-2) so I cannot aid on colours but once closed up, who will know...

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2 hours ago, John D.C. Masters said:

Kit design flaws aside, this seems to be a pretty good looking model.  I am impressed by the cockpit detail at least.  Yours is looking swell!

 

Methinks we must have one...

Pm inbound as I had one for sale.

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4 hours ago, Procopius said:

Stakhanovite

I wish you'd stop using words I have to google to know what they mean,  it eats into my available net time. :D Progress looking good so far. carry on.  :)

Having googled that word, I'm bound to say that  Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, sounds like he was in dire need of retraining. :D

Steve.

Edited by stevehnz
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