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


Homebee

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I didn´t want to offence you AICZ and I agree with you there´s a lot to be proud of in various Czech model companies. But they make mistakes too! Airfix does mistakes too! Yet both companies also produce great models and then, once they fail to do that, is it really necessary to compare them to another kit of a different prototype? What with all that hype over the Eduard 1:48 P-51:s I would´ve commented (everywhere) that too bad the manufacturer just can´t match the 1:24 Hellcat... Peace on Earth, V-P

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Car scale Tiffies & Hellcat have gorgeous surface details - no doubt !  (Tiffies i have, Hellcat now not, but is in my sight...) And when i know a Airfix can make nice kit (and because i don´t understand why make a kit with flaws as is new Fresco.) For me have Airfix nice kits (Flying Fortress, Lancaster - especialy with Hercules engine, Swordfish, Whitley, VICTOR 😮, Meteor F.8 and Hurricane Mk. I 1/48). And Fresco is relative important type - ´Nam, Mid East conflict, Warsaw pact AF...). I still hope was made in small scale can be later enlarged to quarter scale  :)   

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11 hours ago, AlCZ said:

Because it is a Czech company and i´m proud a small company from poorest part Czech Republic play extraleague in aircraft kits ? And was best West European plastic kit producer ? Look at Heller, Revell, Italeri... All going to hell, resigned to really scale modeling and transformed to toy company, with decals version or (sub)version only.... Ok, i can compare with Arma Hobby, too small company... with excellent small scale kits !  And - Eduard make MiG´s, no ? In former Czechoslovakia are MiGs very popular subject  - and discussion about new Airfix Fresco on CZ model discussions is very excited. 

Now I know for sure that curses in three languages:

have also been added with curses in Czech and Slovak!

😁😁

10 hours ago, TEXANTOMCAT said:

are we comparing apples with apples? 

Yes, but if one apple some rotten and with worms,  other not....should there be a price difference between them?

😉

 

B.R.

Serge

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On 16 January 2020 at 10:42 PM, Aardvark said:

es, but if one apple some rotten and with worms,  other not....should there be a price difference between them?

😉

No manufacturer sets out to not mould an accurate kit. They are constrained by budgets, considering the costs of research, design, engineering, materials, labour, etc. Regardless of accuracy they need to charge what their costs dictate plus a margin for their business. Of course after time sales will drive prices differently. Accuracy has only a bearing on price in this way.

 

On the subject of the MiG-17 we should be rejoicing the new offering whatever. Compared with past offerings it must be better!

 

Martin

 

Edited by RidgeRunner
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1 hour ago, oggy4u said:

Has anyone compared it to the AZ MiG-17 ?

I’ve not compared it as I don't have an Airfix yet. I do have the AZ and it certainly can be improved upon hugely. Having said that, it has sat in my cabinet for four years or so and looks okay - just okay ;)

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5 hours ago, RidgeRunner said:

I’ve not compared it as I don't have an Airfix yet.......

Ditto 😀

But I promise I will compare them as only the Airfix one appears at my LHS.

Cheers

Michael

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/5/2020 at 8:55 AM, Dennis_C said:

But flat wing surface... Sorry. All aircraft have curved upper wing side. It's aerodynamics basics.

Er, have you seen the wing of the F-104?

 

How about the F-117A? No curves there either.

Edited by VMA131Marine
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2 minutes ago, Greenshirt said:

 

F-104 wing has a curve (camber). Slight, but there. 
spacer.png
 

I suppose it does, barely. At 3.36% thickness to chord ratio it’s about as close to a flat plate airfoil as a real aeroplane is going to get though.

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2 minutes ago, VMA131Marine said:

I suppose it does, barely. At 3.36% thickness to chord ratio it’s about as close to a flat plate airfoil as a real aeroplane is going to get though.

Yes, but lift includes velocity as part of the formula. Put enough thrust on it to get it moving, and lift will happen. Make it light enough and it’ll fly. Real enough. 
 

Tim

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19 hours ago, VMA131Marine said:

Er, have you seen the wing of the F-104?

 

How about the F-117A? No curves there either.

Actually that's my latest completed model, I saw and photographed F-104 in at least two museums and I thought about F-104 before writing my post :) 

Even helicopter rotor blades have air foil with curved upper surface. Ignorable in 1/72 but still :)

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1 hour ago, Dennis_C said:

Actually that's my latest completed model, I saw and photographed F-104 in at least two museums and I thought about F-104 before writing my post :) 

Even helicopter rotor blades have air foil with curved upper surface. Ignorable in 1/72 but still :)

Oh, there's a huge amount of effort goes into designing helicopter rotor blade airfoils, and propeller blade airfoils for that matter.

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There are huge numbers of aeroplanes out there with zero-camber wings - almost everything designed for competition aerobatics in the last 40 years - but they are not flat-plate wings. 

There are also very successful aeroplanes out there with wings with airfoils which  have completely flat sections over large parts of their surfaces. The Extra 200 and most of the variations on the Extra 300 are like that, the front 20% or so of the chord is a conventional curved D box and then they have flat upper and lower surfaces running from just aft of the mainspar down to the trailing edge. This gives a tremendously quick transition from stalled to unstalled, enabling very precise starting and stopping of flick manouevres. With about 5mm of stick movement you can turn the stalled state on and off like a light switch.  (Because the aileron is deflected this also shows to advantage how the hinge point is well inset into the aileron, greatly lightening the control forces) 

a610372-2-X300%20wing.jpg

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On 1/17/2020 at 11:20 PM, KRK4m said:

I promise I will compare them as only the Airfix one appears at my LHS.

Cheers

Michael

Thanks to messrs Exito Krakow the newest Airfix MiG-17F fell into my hands on Saturday. Thus at last I have a possibility of comparing it against the almost decent AZ MiG-17F kit.

As some of you can remember

three years ago I have published the decent drawings of MiG-15 and MiG-17 drawn by leading Polish aviation modeller, Marian Gibas, who had used the real specimens preserved in the Polish Aviation Museum collection. Whereas the Eduard MiG-15 showed no faults at all, being spot-on both in dimensions and shape, all then known "1/72" kits of MiG-17 proved faulty. Why quotation marks there? Because Hasegawa is 1/64, old KzP is 1/67, Dragon/Italeri/Zvezda is 1/78 and only AZ at some 1/71 can be trouble-free modified to look like the 1/72 MiG-17.

The only faults are: fuselage 3mm too long (forward of the split frame it should be identical to MiG-15, here it's 2mm too long between the canopy tail and the split frame and 1 mm between the split frame and fin leading edge), too pointed wing trailing edge outer ends (the radius of curvature is too small, you can correct it with a file), opposite fault at tailplane trailing edge outer end (here the radius is too big, they should be more pointed, but I can live with this)  Both wing and tailplane (span, sweep, chord and area-wise) are correct.

The distance from the 13th (split one) fuselage frame and air intake front lip (extreme front fuselage) in all MiG-15s and -17/-17F should be 4085 mm (according to the manual), which makes 56.7mm in 1/72. Both drawings by Marian Gibas (-15 and -17F) show 56.7mm, Eduard MiG-15 measures 57.0mm that is almost spot-on, while the AZ MiG-17F features 60.8mm - much too long. Some 2mm of this extra length is put behind the cockpit, but the intake ring itself is also 1.7mm too long - it's chord should be only 3.0mm.

The total length of 11 264 mm stated in the Russian MiG-17 manual is confirmed by the Gibas drawings. This makes 156.4mm in the 72nd scale and 99.7mm (7179 mm full size) behind the split frame. Mind that in all the -17s the rearmost point is the tailplane trailing edge, located some 1.5mm (110mm in real bird) behind the rudder trailing edge extreme point. Thus the fuselage behind the 13th frame (including vertical tail) should be 98.2mm long with AZ kit (measuring 98.8mm) being almost perfect. The fuselage diameter at the 13th fuselage frame should be exactly 150cm (20.8 scale mm) with Eduard MiG-15 featuring 20.5 and AZ MiG-17 with 21.0 both being very close.

And now we have the lidar-scanned Airfix kit, thus any dimensional errors should be extinct. And really this is the case.

The compiled pictures show the Airfix and AZ kit parts with Eduard MiG-15 parts for comparison purposes. The original pictures were taken by camera fixed above the desk with only the sprues changed - thus the distance was fixed and the scale remains the same. The only distortions are those caused by the location of certain item within the sprue - the Airfix fuselage was pictured almost vertically, while the AZ one (located far from the sprue centre) was taken sloped some 15-20 degrees from vertical. 

 

49476637332_829da1396f_o.jpg

 

The Airfix fuselage is 2mm shorter than AZ one, which added to the 1.5mm slimmer intake ring make the fuselage dimensions and shape perfect. Happily the diameter at the 13th frame also is spot-on. So now let's go to the wings (the Eduard one being unnecessary here):

 

49476415666_46c6bf3ecb_o.jpg

 

Almost no difference at all - the chord, sweep angle and even the distance between fences are virtually the same. AZ wings are 1mm too long - easily to correct, but unnecessary with the Airfix ones. Then we can go to the tailplanes:

 

49476415691_396a88c0e5_o.jpg

 

The only noticeable failure of AZ tail was too-rounded rear tip. Corrected by Airfix, which replicates the shape spot-on.

And now one point missed previously by the undersigned - the undercarriage. As these are the units adapted almost unchanged from MiG-15 let me use the Eduard kit as the template to follow.

 

49476637232_532d0f2126_o.jpg

 

 Regrettably I have overlooked this earlier - both main and front gear of AZ kit are heavily out of scale. Even if the wheels look OK (frankly speaking the detail on AZ mainwheels is better than on Airfix ones), the AZ struts are up to 40% too thick. Another detail here is the trailing arm compression angle - both Eduard and Airfix do portray the aircraft unloaded while AZ one is at its MTOW (or even overloaded). Of course the effect will be the quite different angle of attack and the clearance between the rear fuselage and ground.

Summarizing - it's up to you whether you choose the AZ or Airfix MiG-17F kit to build your model. Both have their flaws and advantages. Geometrically and dimensionally Airfix looks flawless, although some purists there underline the wing leading edge (let the file be your friend here) and flat wing uppersurface (impossible to correct) problems. Deep and wide surface trenches can attract the brush-painters, but the spray-gun society would prefer the AZ delicate surface detail. Of course the Airfix box includes some 50 parts more than the "a little basic" AZ kit, but at the end of the day most of these tiny details will be hardly noticeable.

The shape and dimensional faults of AZ kit can be easily corrected - shortening the inlet ring section and the wingtips will be enough. The wing uppersurface is convex as should be, the leading edge should be corrected as in the Airfix kit. The tailplane tips are problematic - you can either leave them rounded as they're or correct the shape with some lack of span as the result. The massive u/c legs aren't so noticeable unless you display your model next to the Eduard MiG-15. And remember - AZ is a short-run kit with no pins and corresponding sockets. Thus far from the Airfix shake-and-bake standard.  

Cheers

Michael

 

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3 hours ago, Homebee said:

Dedicated Res Kit set - ref. ? - exhaust nozzles for Mig-17F in 1/72 scale for Airfix kit.

Release soon..

:hmmm:   That's going to put an awful lot of weight behind the centre of balance.  This kit is fairly marginal on the position of the CB and there's not much room for ballast.

 

We already have liquid gravity.   Someone needs to invent liquid cavorite.  :lol:  

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1 hour ago, Enzo Matrix said:

:hmmm:   That's going to put an awful lot of weight behind the centre of balance.  This kit is fairly marginal on the position of the CB and there's not much room for ballast.

 

We already have liquid gravity.   Someone needs to invent liquid cavorite.  :lol:  

There's always places to hide weight - in the B-26  building at the moment, I even hollowed out some of the nose wheel and put some Liquid Gravity in there 🤪

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