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1/72 - Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17F & Lim-5 "Fresco-C" by Airfix - released - new boxing in August 2024


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On 2/4/2019 at 3:18 PM, Tbolt said:

But surely the designer has a large amount of photo's taken when they did the scan - you don't go working straight from LIDAR data without confirming things visually,

 

 

Sorry I have to remove my posts

 

Good Bye

Gabor   

Edited by ya-gabor
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Hopefully the kit parts will look better than the CAD renders but perhaps this is the triumph of hope over experience on my part :( 

As for the colour schemes and decal options @ya-gabor, I commented on the poor choices projected for the forthcoming Airfix Hunter F.4 kit on their Facebook and was given a reply by Jonathan Mock which I felt was somewhat dismissive and belittling so unfortunately have to say I retain little faith in their willingness to accept or listen to criticism.

Such attitudes will not serve them well for the future in my opinion.

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19 hours ago, Hobo said:

KRK4m and ya-gabor – thank you very much for the in-depth posts concerning the MiG-17 and Lim series aircraft. Very much appreciated.

Almost everyday I do increase my knowledge of many aviation subjects thanks to the plenty of BM fellows.

Thus I feel obliged to write something about the matters I'm used to know on this other side of Iron Curtain :)

And I hope it helps

Cheers

Michael

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Hi all, interesting thread. I've just been contacted by Simon (Owen) of Airfix to clear up a few points regarding the kit,

Basically, in his words, 

 

. The periscope is included, it's on a second canopy not shown. 
. The schemes are early roughs. So don't worry. Will be correct on release. 
. We monitor forums, but don't respond, so we do see what goes on / what they are saying. We do appreciate all bits of info, too late to make huge changes now, but thanks all the same.
. We hope they enjoy the kit. And it won't have a FOD cover. The scanned one did. But the kit won't.''

 

Hi Gabor, I've also emailed your good self the details.

 

There's a distinct possibility that I'll be building the test shot for AMW when it arrives so it'll be interesting to see just what we have in the box. 

 

Quote

They scanned the MiG 17 in Finland... 

Not true...sorry, but I can't say much more at this time.

 

Cheers

 

Andy

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5 minutes ago, general melchett said:

We monitor forums, but don't respond, so we do see what goes on / what they are saying. We do appreciate all bits of info, too late to make huge changes now, but thanks all the same.

Which is a shame because they've been given a bucket load of free research here, now if they'd announced the kit before it became too late instead of saving it up for a big announcement maybe something could have been done.

 

Oh well, a week ago I knew none of this about the wing, I was going to get the kit then and still will, it's just now that I know about that wing I'll have to do something about it.

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31 minutes ago, general melchett said:

 

Not true...sorry, but I can't say much more at this time.

 

No problem... I’m picking given the commentary in the Workbench article if they say where it was scanned the venue will open up what else is there and the cats out of the bag...

 

any how how if you do end up building it for AMW will you mention the issues with the leading edge in your review if they transpire into the plastic??

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Quote

any how if you do end up building it for AMW will you mention the issues with the leading edge in your review if they transpire into the plastic??

Thanks Plasto, yes, everything noted gets mentioned, (along with any suggestions on remedying the problem, if at all possible). 

 

Quote

Good luck with building the test shot down in Bomber County!            

Hi Gabor, ha, thanks my friend, (I see what you did there)...btw, thanks for the info on the type, appreciated... you certainly know your subject...:smartass:

 

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5 hours ago, Wez said:

Which is a shame because they've been given a bucket load of free research here, now if they'd announced the kit before it became too late instead of saving it up for a big announcement maybe something could have been done.

Although I agree with these comments entirely we probably need to cut Airfix a bit of slack here. There’s probably two trains of thought  -

 

1. Announce all your 2020 / 21 subjects upfront and wait for the SME’s (BM members etc.) to flood you with free research. 

 

2. Expose all your ideas to other competitors and possibly get beaten to the market by a somewhat similar subject. 

 

I suppose we cannot have it both ways and although Airfix may appear to be a huge global company to most of us (I believe) their R&D Group is only made up of only a few hard working members. Adding young designer Tom to the team is a forward thinking move and a great sign that growth in Airfix is seriously being considered. I would also like to add that this Mig-17 is also the young lads first foray into plastic kit design, so let’s show him a little courtesy and congratulate him on that effort. 

 

Now I’m certainly not berating any of the comments above regarding differences and issues between the actual aircraft and published CAD images. This is all really good information that I’ll admit had no idea about before this kit announcement was made. 

 

Cheers.. Dave

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Gabor,

I think you may be reading too much into the provided CAD rendition of the model. You also may not be taking into account some financial restrictions in designing and manufacturing the tooling to produce this kit. Remember, for the Hornby group just now, the accountant is probably as involved in decision making as the head of the design team when submitting their future release requests. 

 

For the tooling, there may have been the Chinese equivalent of sucking through teeth while the toolmakers considered putting another zero on the end of the quote just to get sharp wing root leading edges! There may also be some input from the moulding company where they dont have the ability to mould such a sharp LE in such an area. Penny pinching may be hurting us, but im looking at my 1/48 Airfix Spitfire XII from about 12 feet away and it looks mighty fine! 

 

I dont understand your point about the original MiG-15 seat in the down position though? Could you expand please?

Arabest,

Geoff.

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Dear Sirs
Let me disagree with your points.
Dave: this is a bussines, based on delivering product, which (they hope), will sell well and bring them plenty of mulla.
I don't have any "fuzzy, friendly, warm" feeling regarding their choice of staffing. Young, old, startup or whatever!
Do you get a discount in regards - who done it? They, themselves said in the article - we took / wee look / plenty of photos.
Announce / expose etc----NEEE   My guess is - If they in a game, they should know "pool of experts". No prob with PM, ey?
Just ask, there will be always a good ansfer from BM - always!
Do you feel like sponsoring young lad in his first foray into the plastic??? You my CHAMPION Dave!
Jazzie - I don't think, there would be any difference in price, to make "sharp vs blunt" wing.
Airfix splashed on making interior of Wellington, which you can, or can't see.
So this is for the boys moaning about the cost of forms.
Thank you for attention, and have a good sleep.
z

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On 2/5/2019 at 10:11 AM, zigster said:

I belive, Poles done a cutout in a wing-fence to see the thin white/red bugger.

Could be Lim-6 though.

Sorry I have to remove my posts

 

Good Bye

Gabor   

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1 hour ago, ya-gabor said:

2.

Concerning the ejection seat.

The seat headrest is shown on the CAD deep inside the cockpit this is what I mean by "Down position".

Actually it was possible to adjust the seat height but the headrest was still at the same constant level only the seat bucket and the back was moved up or down.

 

MiG OKB designed a seat based on captured WW2 German data. The seat has its main frame of two parallel steel U beams going all the way up to the headrest. The U beams attach to the headrest assembly which is in turn attached to the top of the actual catapult gun. Even on these very early ejection seats it was possible to adjust the seat level according to the height of the pilot. It was a manual adjustment with two big metal pins and not something like the electric motors on today’s seats. The given fighter had to be so to say “personalized” for a given pilot well in advance of a flight. One takes out the seat, it is very easy. Just one bolt attaching the head assembly to the catapult gun. The seat is just 20 or so kilos so it is very easy to pull it out single handed. Remove the two big pins and readjust the headrest to a new height level. Slide back the seat and reattach to the catapult gun. Remember we are talking about late 1940’s and the very first ejection seats!

 

How do I know? Sorry but I have 4 different original MiG-15 seats in my collection as well as the one for the MiG-17.

 

 

Best regards

Gabor

Hello Gabor,

I was not questioning your credentials when asking about the seats as you already prove your knowledge with what you have written. What i no doubt didnt get across was, is the seat actually wrong? From what i can make out from your description is the headrest is missing? 

 

You say that it is just as easy to get something right as it is to get it wrong, but we all start somewhere and at the start of my career in aviation, i certainly made plenty mistakes. I also had some tasks where things were missing and i wonder if all the original parts were in place. To that end, did the LIDAR subject have its correct seat with all the correct parts?

Arabest,

Geoff. 

 

 

 

 

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On 2/5/2019 at 11:11 AM, Jazzie said:

Hello Gabor,

I was not questioning your credentials when asking about the seats as you already prove your knowledge with what you have written. What i no doubt didnt get across was, is the seat actually wrong? From what i can make out from your description is the headrest is missing? 

 

You say that it is just as easy to get something right as it is to get it wrong, but we all start somewhere and at the start of my career in aviation, i certainly made plenty mistakes. I also had some tasks where things were missing and i wonder if all the original parts were in place. To that end, did the LIDAR subject have its correct seat with all the correct parts?

Arabest,

Geoff. 

 

 

 

 

Sorry I have to remove my posts

 

Good Bye

Gabor   

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Hi Guys, my understanding is, as Meltchett says,  that the CAD shown for the Mig is from early in the deisgn process and should not be regarded as representative of the final product. I guess they have to compromise sometimes between the excitement of showing you what they are doing and the dangers of showing a half fisnished product

 

Regarding Jonathan Mock's comment on Facebook, as I posted in the same thread I don't think he was dismissive, he just stated what the facts are
 

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They have changed things form announcement to release before - the Martlet cowling for example, or the change to the Hunter colour scheme when they realised you couldn't build an F6A from the parts supplied in the kit, or the French Blenheim art as further research into the Cross of Lorraine colours was done. And they do make mistakes. Harrier GR3 fin top for one

 

 

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10 hours ago, ya-gabor said:

- The “blob” on the wing for the gear down-up position makes it toy like.

Simple enough to sand it off and replace with a bit of stretched sprue is it not?

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Really from this point on discussion on the kits faults while interesting is to a point redundant. It’s simply not going to influence getting the design revised.

 

What we’re getting indirectly from Airfix is that it’s too late to run any changes to the kit design / tooling. So the leading edge and other less than ideal aspects of the kit is what it is.

 

I don’t know why Airfix have done what they have. It boils down to either it’s been missed during design. Which sort of negates the stated ‘power’ of LIDAR as a super tool for getting shapes correct. 

 

Or it was captured and noted and the design didn’t incorporate it to simplify the shape and hence the tooling. Which could be about cost or design for manufacture.

 

What none of us know is what limiting factors are on the Airfix design team from the injection moulding side. So they might be for example capable of designing tooling to compete with Tamiya fit and surface detail. But the manufacturing process sets a limit on what fidelity can be achieved. 

 

All model companies make mistakes with aspects of kit design around detail or shape at some point or another.

 

If they didn’t forums would be full of people building models not discussing shape issues....

 

Have Fun

 

Plasto

 

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On 04/02/2019 at 15:40, Col. said:

@ya-gaborAirfix Hunter F.4 kit on their Facebook and was given a reply by Jonathan Mock which I felt was somewhat dismissive and belittling so unfortunately have to say I retain little faith in their

Is Jonathan Mock the official mouthpiece of Airfix on facebook?

 

Curious.

 

Tommo.

 

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