F-263 MiG-21 **Scrapped**

[John]

Absolutely no promises that this will be finished by the deadline!

 

I was browsing on Ebay when I saw this:

 

 

I was intrigued. I remember my cousin having this kit but the box art was a Soviet MiG roaring down a dark and rainy runway in full burner. I've never seen this version.

 

I've built the Hasegawa boxing, mostly because it had Ugandan markings, so I know it isn't the best MiG out there. Apart from anything else it's noticeably larger than the Airfix kit, which was about the only other one easily available at that time. It also has the transparent parts behind the main canopy moulded solid.

 

However it's another FROG kit I have fond memories of, so it's worth getting.

 

John

[JOCKNEY]

Great choice John

 

I hadn't seen this box either, but according to Scalemates the box was changed in 1971 from the one we all remember. As you rightly say this was another kit missing from the build list, good luck if you try to finish it before the deadline, I hope it behaves itself !

 

cheers Pat

 

[John]

Towards the end of my primary schooling, so either Christmas of 1971 or 1972, we headed down south to visit my aunt and uncle who at the time were living in the village of Islip, near Kettering. 

My cousin is about the same age as me and was then a mad keen modeller so we stopped off in Lockerbie on the way down to see if we could pick up a kit for him. The MiG was in a shop window, but it was the other artwork and it has stuck in my mind all these years -  it was quite striking. 

I recall the model being built, painted and on display within 24 hours of it being handed over - these were the days 🙂

That's the only time I can remember seeing this kit, apart from on trade stands at shows or swapmeets and even then not often. 

There used to be an old fashioned bike shop in Thrapston, just across the River Nene from Islip, and my cousin and I spent many a happy time browsing their stock of Airfix kits. 

Sadly, my uncle's work took him to the USA a year or so later and I haven't been back in that part of the country since then. When they came back they went to live just outside Bedford, which had a couple of great model shops in those days, so that was OK 😁

J 

[John]

Righty-ho, I've now had a chance to take a look in the box.

 

No canopy, but that's not a major problem. I've got a Pavla vacform somewhere.

 

Secondly, the last time I built this kit it was the Hasegawa boxing with artwork of Egyptian aircraft scrambling on the front. That was moulded in tan plastic, but I don't remember it having this hinged system for the tailplane. It might have, of course:

 

 

I know for sure it didn't have engraved markings:

 

 

The cool 4-option decal sheet. I remember using the Iraqi ones on an Airfix MiG-21:

 

 

John

 

 

[PeterB]

Hi John.

 

According to the Cocardes site they say the "ones produced by Hasegawa had the star moulding" Reading between the lines it is perhaps possible from their wording that Frog may have done a version themselves, so perhaps that is the one you remember? I am sure Richard would know! They say it did not sell well due to it being 1/67 scale. They also say the decal sheet was popular as I remember you saying in another thread several months back - I dare say some people boiught it for the decs as it was cheap.

 

Thought I was cutting it fine with my Meteor - you are going to have to do a "Blitz Build" with this one, but it should go together pretty fast and the paint scheme is simple enough.

 

Good luck.

 

Pete

[Rabbit Leader]

Blitz build + 2 weeks John.. the new end date is now 20 October. I must admit, I had the same Hasegawa Mig-21 kit, however don’t recall it having that tail slot nor recessed stars on the wings. I’m going back over thirty years, however I’m pretty sure of that. 

 

Cheers and good luck.. Dave 

[PeterB]

Hi Dave,

 

In my build thread for the Shackleton I mentioned the film "The Never Ending Story" - is this in danger of becoming the "Never Ending GB"?  Still the extension will no doubt help quite a few of our friends to finish their builds which is good. Had I known we would have a month extra I might have built my Do17Z, but I think I will resist the temptation as I have other GB to get on with. So, a bit less pressure on us all - can't be bad! Dare I say Sea Venom?

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

 

Edited September 28, 2019 by PeterB

[John]

I found this image on the web, showing a partially built Hasegawa kit:

 

I

 

It doesn't seem to have moulded markings. Difficult to tell for definite though.

 

John

[PeterB]

Strange,

 

Hasegawa seem to have released this in 1966, and reboxed it in 1969 at about the same time Frog started selling it. The version you have is the second box Frog version. Perhaps the first box contained a different version to the second, though it does seem odd as the engraved stars seem more likely to be early Hasegawa and similar to certain early US kits. Scalemates say they were all reboxings of the Hasegawa 1966 original but I wonder if that is entirely correct. Maybe Hasegawa cleaned up the mould and removed the stars at some point, but then ran out and supplied Frog with old kits for their 2 rebox. Who knows!

 

Pete

[John]

It seems most likely that they just cleaned up one of their earlier moulds at some point. It's still on sale today in a double boxing with their MiG-17.

Did Hasegawa have form for moulded on markings in their very early kits?

John 

[John]

The Hasegawa/FROG kit is definitely a bit on the chunky side compared to the excellent Revell example:

 

 

John

[Richard Humm]

The original Hasegawa tooling did have the engraved stars, as they are mentioned in the 1966 IPMS Magazine review of the kit. Hasegawa may well have removed them later on (they definitely made changes to some of the other early tools, like the Lightning), but I think both boxings of the FROG kit still had them.

[Johnson]

That's great John, you seem to be the only one making the Mig 21, which is surprising considering what an important cold-war jet it was.

 

I was considering making this kit, but fate took me elsewhere. I haven't made a Mig 21 since, well a long, long time ago (in a Galaxy far away).

 

The box art is quite striking.

 

Looking forward to it taking shape.

[JOCKNEY]

Come on John

Enough shilly shallying let's see some glue and paint action please 

Cheers Pat

[John]

1/67th  scale airframe, 1/100th scale pilot:

 

 

 

This kit really is a creature of its time.

 

John

 

[Johnson]

FROG pilot's do tend to be on the young side.

 

My theory is that the fuselage plastic is so thick, anything larger won't fit. Certainly that was the case with my Sea Fury.

[John]

This kit is a very mixed bag. There's some innovative engineering - the spine is moulded completely with one fuselage half so there's no join along the fuselage top but on the other hand not many of the smaller parts fit:

 

 

Also, in spite of being a relatively new mould when this boxing was released, it's a flash queen:

 

 

Onwards and upwards...

 

John

[JOCKNEY]

Any more progress John you were going great guns when we last heard from you.

 

Cheers Pat 

[John]

Jeeze this is a terrible kit, I'm amazed Hasegawa are still punting it all these years later.

 

 

I decided to finish it as a generic PVO interceptor as I wasn't going to try a natural metal scheme on it but none of my spare MiG canopies came close to fitting. I'm fairly sure that, not only is the kit out of scale but the cockpit opening is disproportionately long.

 

The pilot's also too small - maybe you could make a decent Su-9 out of it? 😲

 

John

 

 

 

[JOCKNEY]

Come on John, you can do it !