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Russian Yak-130 "Mitten" (KH80157) 1:48


Mike

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Russian Yak-130 "Mitten" (KH80157)

1:48 Kitty Hawk

 

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The Mitten (that's a cute name!) is a small 2-seat advanced subsonic trainer that is able to haul around 3,000kg of munitions to perform its ancillary role of light fighter.  It began development as a joint project with Italian company Aermacci, but creative differences led to a split after the unveiling of the prototypes in the mid-90s, following which each manufacturer went their own way, even though the majority of the design and airframe work was completed.  The Italian version became the M-346 and they agreed to split the market roughly between NATO and independent states that were previously aligned with the Soviets, or had good relations and a track history of purchases.

 

The Yak-130 won the competition to become the new Russian trainer in the early noughties, beating Mikoyan into second place, and securing a small pre-production order to begin with.  It is a thoroughly modern trainer, and can mimic the controls of the majority of the current 4th and 4.5 generation aircraft in the Russian inventory, and also has the capability to replicate the controls of the new Su-57, formerly known as the Pak-Fa.  This is accomplished by a fly-by-wire system plus a trio of large Multi-Function Displays (MFD) in the cockpit, which can be configured according to their training requirements, involving dogfighting, missile and weapons launch, self-defence and other systems in order to prepare the pilots for their eventual role.  A side project to create the Yak-131, a light-attack aircraft was terminated due to insufficient safety of the pilots at low levels, leaving the Mitten as the only fork of the design in Russian service.

 

 

The Kit

This is a brand new tooling from Kitty Hawk of this diminutive trainer, and coincides with the release of the Aermacchi "version" from another vendor, which may or may not be a coincidence, who knows?  With it being a small aircraft, it's surprising to see that it arrives in the same sized box as some of the larger aircraft from the KH line, but once you open the box you can see why.  It's a box of Russian/Soviet weapons with a free Mitten for good measure!  There are seven large sprues in the box, plus one clear sprue, a small fret of Photo-Etch (PE) brass, a container with two resin pilot figures inside, three decal sheets, one of which is tiny, and the instruction booklet with pull-out centre pages on glossy paper for the full-colour painting and decaling guides.

 

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Detail is nice, with lots of raised and engraved features, plus use of sliding moulds to give either additional detail, or reduce part count, which alongside the four weapons sprues makes for a well-rounded package.  Parts breakdown is interesting, with the top fuselage and blended wings moulded as one part, plus a two-part lower fuselage and wing inserts completing the main airframe.  The canopy has been moulded in a split-mould, so that the correct "bubble" of the part is obtained, but it behoves you sand down the seam and polish it back to clarity, which is a common theme of modern jets and their quest for situational awareness.  Construction begins with the cockpit, making up the two  NPO Zvezda K-36LT3.5 ejection seats, which share a common look with many modern Russian seats, and have separate cushions and PE seatbelts if you aren't using the supplied resin pilot figures, in which case you would leave off the rear seat's belts, as the front seat pilot is depicted climbing aboard.  The cockpit tub is built from a stepped floorpan, onto which a combined rudder/control stick assembly is fitted, then the sidewalls are brought in, which hold up the instrument panels, both of which have decals for their MFDs.  The rear IP has a coaming added, the rear bulkhead is installed, and the launch rails for both seats are affixed to the resulting bulkheads, with the seats fitting into their slots at this point.  As with many smaller modern fighters, the nose gear bay is right under the cockpit floor, being built up from individual panels and glued in place straddling the step, and held in the correct location by a quartet of L-shaped guides.  The nose gear leg has a two-part yoke that traps the wheel in place, and can be fitted now or later as you see fit, with a clear landing light attached to the oleo.  The completed assembly is then dropped into the lower nose part, which needs a few holes drilling beforehand, after which it is set aside while the upper fuselage is prepared.  The upper fuselage and wings are fitted out with an airbrake bay and a pair of inserts inside the root extensions, which once the lower nose and cockpit are installed, these parts will be partially seen under the extensions, so fit them nice and neatly, minimising any gaps, and filling those you can't disguise.

 

The Mitten (I do like that name) is a twin-engined aircraft, and the intake trunks are built up as assemblies that are then installed above the main gear bay in the lower fuselage.  You'll need to take a view on how much will be seen here before you go mad with filling seams, but as the tubular section is a single part and has an engine front attached to the end, only the U-shaped initial area will have a seam to fill.  The gear bay is central and shared by both wheels, with bulkheads added before it can be slotted into the fuselage along with the APU exhaust on the starboard side.  The rear of the engines are fitted to the exhaust trunks, which are split lengthways in half, so may need filling, and these are then attached to their troughs, with fairings added between and around them, leaving just a fraction of the lip exposed.  This assembly can then be added to the upper fuselage and you have a fairly complete airframe that just needs lower wing panels, leading edge parts, then the flaps in the deployed position, ailerons, and finally the intake lips installing to complete the wings.  The main gear legs have more clear lights added, and two-piece wheels fitted at the end of the cranked oleo, before they are glued along with the retraction mechanism on either side of the centre bulkhead, with doors and their jacks for all the wheels added later.

 

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Flipping the model over, the nose cone is affixed along with a forest of antennae and aerials around the front, plus the large HUD for the pilot, which has two clear lenses for added realism.  The crew ladder is depicted deployed by default on the model, which is to take advantage of the resin crew figures, one of which is climbing into the front seat with his face masked and ready to go, while the instructor peruses a checklist.  They're very nicely sculpted, and give a human dimension to this little aircraft.  Two inserts are supplied for the holes in the root extensions, which I would rather have installed earlier in case they fall through into the interior, but there's nothing stopping you from doing this yourself if you wish.  The auxiliary intake doors behind the cockpit are depicted closed, which is a bit of a shame from a detail point of view, but I would imagine that Eduard or someone will be all over that very soon now, as they're often seen open, especially in flight.  The airbrake bay gets its door and jack, the windscreen is fitted around the now-complete coaming, and the rear canopy is bedecked with a set of PE rear-view mirrors and handle before it is installed in either the open or closed position.  As it hinges sideways, you might want to do something to strengthen the bond early on, and a little research should result in a solution.  You might also notice that there is a shallow blast shield between the cockpits, so grab a piece of spare acetate sheet and make your own if you're in the mood.  The wingtips have pods on adapter rails fitted, with the chaff and flare dispensers moulded into the tops, with two pins holding each pod in the correct location, and a small clear wingtip light visible on the inside of the rail.  Your poor little Mitten has lost his tail, or rather it's not been fitted yet, so a nicely slide-moulded fin part fits into a depression in the top of the fuselage, with two pins for good measure, while the elevators are moulded in one part each, with a central(ish) pin around which they rotate.

 

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Now for the stores and hard-points, which the Yak has seven of excluding the already occupied wingtip points.  Three stations per wing are supplied, with the outermost one having PE shackle-points, and the centreline point has a twin-cannon pod fitted, in case things get down-and-dirty.  There is a cornucopia of weaponry on those four sprues, some of which won't be carried in real-world scenarios, but it's surprising just how many it can carry, but with hindsight it has to carry pretty much everything that the frontline aircraft can or it won't be an adequate trainer.   Here's a list of what's suggested as candidates for a load-out, but if you want accuracy, check your references for actual configurations.

 

2 x fuel tanks

2 x KAB-500KR TV-guided bomb

2 x KAB-500L or 500SE laser guided bomb

2 x KH-29T A2S missile with different seeker heads

2 x R-73 Archer short-range A2A missiles with APU-73 adapter rails

2 x R-77 Adder A2A missiles with adapter rail

2 x KH-25-ML or MT A2S missiles with adapter rail

2 x U-4 launch rails

2 x U-6 launch rails

4 x BD-3UMK adapter rails

4 x BD-4UMK adapter rails

2 x KH-58ME Kilter anti-radiation missiles

4 x  R-60 Aphid A2A heat-seeking missiles with adapter rails

2 x KAB-1500-L, KR or SE laser guided bomb

2 x KH-31 Krypton supersonic A2S anti-shipping missiles

2 x R-27ER or ET Alamo long-range A2A missiles with APU-470 adapter rails

2 x R-27T Alamo medium-to-long range A2A missiles with APU-470 adapter rails

 

There are also some rocket pods and iron bombs that aren't used, so if you wanted to play "spot the unused bombs" have fun with it!  There's a diagram at the end of the instructions that shows which loads can be placed where, but again, if you're going for realism, there's no substitute for checking your references for real-world choices.

 

 

Markings

There are a lot of decals with this kit, and from the box you can build one of seven options.  The second large sheet of decals is purely for the weapons, while the other sheet is destined for the airframe and the little sheet contains the MFD decals for the instrument panel and a couple of colourful decals that couldn't be included on the main sheet.  The markings guide is stapled in the centre of the booklet, so as usual I have liberated them by unpicking and re-bending the stapes, leaving the last glossy page in situ as its reverse side contains some of the build instructions.

 

Here are your decal options:

 

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Kitty Hawk are another of those companies that sometimes don't include any information about the location, unit or time period for their decal options, and this is one of those times.  We know that you can make Russian machines in primer, grey, red or green, or a Bangladesh Air Force option, which they have accidentally referred to as "Bulgarian" on the side of the box, and that's your lot.  The primer airframe is one of the prototypes, and the colourful ones are aircraft that have been on display, the red one bearing a resemblance to the Russian acrobatic team's red and white scheme.

 

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Decals aren't always the strongest part of KH kits, but this one seems to be ok, save for a slight offset on the white, which creates a little "shadow" on some of the decals that it has been used to underprint weaker colours.  The instrument decals are really detailed, and could pass for real, but you would need to leave the canopy open to really appreciate them, so give that some thought during the build.  The det-cord that shatters the canopy before ejection is supplied as a decal, which there are always divided options about, with two camps that prefer either moulded-in or decals, so there's no pleasing everyone.  The carrier film should be easy to hide with some careful application of Klear/Future or similar gloss varnish however, so with a bit of care they can be made to look good.  The decals for the weapons are good enough for the task, although my copy has a slight blemish in the black banding for the KH-59 missiles, but as those don't appear to be on the sprues, I'm not even worried.

 

 

Conclusion

Cute as a button, and a nice-looking aircraft that comes with a huge range of stores and some nice schemes.  The lack of blow-in aux-intake doors and more information on the decal options are minor downsides on the whole, but who wouldn't want a Yak-130 in their stash (I know, some people won't, but you've got this far)?  What's more, if you bought two, you could answer the question "What's in the bag?" from your Significant Other honestly, if a little misleadingly.  "Oh, just a pair of mittens, darling".

 

Highly recommended.

 

Review sample courtesy of

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and available soon from major hobby shops

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22 hours ago, Mike said:

the red one bearing a resemblance to the Russian acrobatic team's red and white scheme.

The red one is in Yakolev's traditional house colours - as used on their piston engined trainers.....

 

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It was applied to a couple of their demo airframes at MAKS 2013 ...

 

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Great review btw :thumbsup:

 

Ken

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On ‎11‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 2:35 AM, Mike said:

Russian Yak-130 "Mitten" (KH80157)

1:48 Kitty Hawk

 

boxtop.jpg

 

 

 

figures.jpg

 

 The crew ladder is depicted deployed by default on the model, which is to take advantage of the resin crew figures, one of which is climbing into the front seat with his face masked and ready to go, while the instructor peruses a checklist.  They're very nicely sculpted, and give a human dimension to this little aircraft. 

 

The pilot reminds me of the idiots who can't switch their phones off when viewing movies at the cinema.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, they don't know Russian and probably can't see any difference between russian Я and english R in all those НЕ СТАНОВИТЬСR
But they can't even distinguish left from right. They gave all walkway decals for the left wing only, while all "no step zone" trapezes (decals 15 and 20) are for the starboard :facepalm:

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6 hours ago, Yury Tepsurkaev said:

OK, they don't know Russian and probably can't see any difference between russian Я and english R in all those НЕ СТАНОВИТЬСR
But they can't even distinguish left from right. They gave all walkway decals for the left wing only, while all "no step zone" trapezes (decals 15 and 20) are for the starboard :facepalm:

They really nee to look at who is doing the decal art. The 1/32 F-5F they had to do amendment sheets for as you got two sets of tail decals for one side originally. 

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