Zvezda 1/72 Mig 21bis

[Natter]

As they pushed away from earlier French colonial influence the Russians were on hand to fill the vacuum in Madagascar.  The Madagascar Government purchased a dozen or so Mig-21s, though their greatest role seemed to have been in the bombing of the presidential palace.  There is an interesting little tale linked here, which has a couple of photos of the rather sad looking Migs.

 

Looking at the photos I am still unsure if the aircraft are oxidised natural metal or faded air-superiority grey.  I went for the oxidised natural metal.  If that's wrong, well no one who is going to look in my display cabinet is likely to know so I will just live with it.

 

Aftermarket was limited to the Berna Decals 'Africa Migs Part 1' from which I had already used the Zimbabwe decals, Eduard canopy masks and the Aeroclub KM-1 ejection seat as the kit seat is very basic.  The decals don't include any stencils so I used some of the kit decals for those.  I used grey primer as I didn't want a shiny finish and then a series of Vallejo acrylic Metal Colors.  I started with Dark Aluminium and then used the salt technique to layer over Aluminium and White Aluminium with a final mist of Tamiya Sky Grey over the top for the final oxidised finish.  I tried to fade the decals with fine abrasives, but that didn't work very well.  The Sky Grey over the top worked better for that.  The aircraft modelled is pictured at this link looking rather sad, and you can see the tail number is still clear or has been repainted.

 

The kit pitot is also very basic and has no vanes of any sort, so I added some from 5 thou plasticard.

 

 

 

 

A bit of work was done in the cockpit as this was reasonably detailed right out of the box.  I am quite pleased with the cockpit colour, as the majority of it was self mixed.  I have the old Citadel Hawk Turquoise and I mixed it with a little Life Color French Green.  The cockpit coaming and the canopy colour are done in AK Real Color Russian Cockpit Turquoise, which I ordered too late to compete with my impatience, and my self mix is really close to that 'real' colour.  The instrument panel and side panel details are all hand painted with whatever I had to hand; Tamiya, Vallejo, Games Workshop, Mr Color.

 

 

The KM-1 is the Aeroclub metal seat which has etch ejection handles, side panels and leg restraints.  It's a lovely little seat which I have tried to do justice with the same mix of paints mentioned above.  There are no stencils of course, so the seat labels are just hand painted.  Fortunately I had decided to model the canopy open rather than hide the work in the cockpit as the canopy won't actually fit over the head rest.

 

 

The underside was just given a patchy spray of matt varnish as the underside would have been less exposed to the sunlight and rain.  The green of wheels and radomes are Citadel Dark Angels Green, with a mix to lighten it for the tail covers.  This paint is no longer available but I believe there is another company (Instar?) that now makes 'Vintage' matches to the old Citadel colours.

 

 

On some aircraft models the panel lines look 'right' when they're highlighted, but not for this model.  I added some Paynes Grey to the control surfaces and a few of the panel lines on the back of the aircraft which show up in the photos of the real aircraft but I left the rest of the panel lines which are commendably fine.

 

 

I am sure there are Mig officianados who will argue about the accuracy of the kit, but to me it looks like Mig-21 and that works for me.  The kit goes together very well indeed and I only needed the tiniest smear of filler along the wing and fin joins, the rest just fitted perfectly.  Thank you for looking.

[Pete in a shed]

Well that's different! I didn't even realise the Madagascans had an air force. Lovely little MiG Dave. I shall have to have a go at the oxidised look its very effective.

Pete

[SAT69]

Very nice build and that cockpit is gorgeous!

[Vultures1]

That's a great MiG-21 Dave!  Really nice work on the cockpit and finish, so that it all just looks 'right' to my eye.  Good to see a more unusual set of markings too - well done

[Mig88]

Very nicely done indeed!

I intend to make a Madagascar MiG-21 eventually too albeit in 1:144!

 

Miguel

[Ryan Hothersall]

Nice build. 

[swralph]

Very nice build Dave.😀

[RidgeRunner]

Well, that is exactly the kind of model I love! Great aircraft, a different and unusual colour scheme and well built :). Well done!

 

Martin