Lavochkin La-5FN***FINISHED***

[PeterB]

If I had any sense I would not be doing this as I am already involved in 2 other GB with others starting before long but what the heck - this one runs until September and I have quite a few other "cheap" kits in my stash including this one.

According to Scalemates this is the 2012 reboxing of the Il-2 that was originally released in 1964, and being series 2 would certainly have been less than a tenner when I bought it back then. I originally built it not long after it came out though I have no idea where it is now - in a box in my roof I suspect. In those days the instructions were to paint it green and brown over light blue, and that was certainly a valid scheme for at least the first half of the war, as was green and black over blue, but in this most recent boxing Airfix suggest the late war 3 colour camo scheme of green, brown and grey over blue so I will have a shot at that. The actual colours are not entirely certain but I recently bought a set of Russian VVS paints from Sovereign Hobbies for the Airfix Pe-2 which cannot be entered in this GB I suspect as it is series 3, though I have had it so long it might just be eligible - I might see if I can find the invoice details. I will probably be using AMT-7 for the blue instead of AII version and the "brown" will be the so called "yellow grey" version as that seems to be the only brown Jamie sells at the moment. The Grey will be AMT-12 dark grey, but the green is problematic. Some sources suggest the earlier AII Green, others the browner AMT-4 Olive Green. I may use an AM resin replacement for the rear gun, but all other changes will be cosmetic - cockpit and wheel wells I suspect.

 

More as and when I start.

 

Pete

 

Later,

 

I have found the invoice(s) - it seems Scalemates were wrong about this boxing as I bought it in September 2010 from Hannants for £5.99! I also bought the Pe-2 at the same time for £7.99, the ICM I-16 for £6.50, and the AModel La-5FN for £6.60 so all 4 Soviet WWII planes left  in my stash are eligible - I build the other half of the batch 3 years ago - Lagg-3, Mig-3, Yak-3 and Yak-9D so I might just complete my collection!

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by PeterB

[AdrianMF]

I'm not even going to say "accuracy". No sir. Not me. Nope. No way. Uh-nuh.

 

One of the rare cases where Airfix were more wrong than "Aircraft of the Fighting Powers".

 

You can get an IL-2 out of it, as some poor sap demonstrated here. Alternatively if you get bored you can probably make an equally good Fairey Battle out of it instead. Or you could just build it and damn the torpedoes!

 

Looking forward to this in a perverse sort of way.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[PeterB]

Hi Adrian,

 

Yes I though it might not be too accurate  - Iooked at the linked thread and I see what you mean. I am beginning to think I may drop this build and go straight on to the Airfix Pe-2, unless of course that also is totally innacurate. I will probably still build it but not as part of this GB as I don't have time for major modifications at the moment. Anybody got any idea how accurate the HobbyBoss or Zvezda Il-2's are?

 

Over the last 65 years I have build several hundred aircraft kits and I expect very few are anything like totally accurate. Most are close enough, and some can be modified to give a reasonable facsimile without an enormous amount of work, but it is now clear that this is so wrong that even I cannot bring myself to build it in a GB. I could no doubt fix it using Adrian's excellent build as a guide, though I would struggle with the canopy I think as he is rather better at those sort of things than I ever have been - though I could perhaps try one of Rob Taurus' vac form replacements. For the moment this is going to be put on hold and replaced by this which cost me £6.60 from Hannants in November 2010.

Crude and a bit of flash but should be a nice quick build. I think it is a 20 or so year old reboxing of a KP kit dating back to 1986, so probably not that accurate but hopefully better than the Il-2!

 

Pete

Edited June 26, 2021 by PeterB

[AdrianMF]

Awww. Sorry, didn’t mean to put you off building it.  I’m not a rivet counter, honest, but there are some kits that I feel compelled to re-engineer, because that’s what I do, even though they don’t have to be built that way.

 

A perfect case in point is @TonyW’s SB2 in this GB - none of the hair shirt fuselage narrowing that I did, yet a great model that I’m frankly jealous of because it looks so-o-o cool in that Winter camo.

 

I’ve built the Airfix PE-2 and the Yak-9 with a few mods somewhere on this site and they are great kits.

 

The Hobbyboss IL-2 is great as you can see in this GB’s gallery and the Zvezda is a re-pop of the Toko mould, which has some single seater details like the anti-flutter weights in the wingtips, and a lot of rivetty metalwork on the wings that may not be appropriate for the two seater, but they both look like an IL-2 out of the box (as does the Airfix kit) (well, sorta  ). And I’ve seen some great Airfix IL-2 OOB builds on other forums too. I’m sorry to have put you off the kit. Nil illegitimi carborundum!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[PeterB]

Thanks Adrian,

 

It's fine - I probably don't have time available to do all 4 Russian plane kits anyway, and certainly not to do major work on the Il-2  - I may get back to it later or I may replace it . Actually I have the old Frog SB-2 as well but after Mjwojack's  problems in the old Frog GB a couple of years ago I decided to leave it. Seeing Tony's build I may get round to it before too long but I have have plenty of other things to keep me occupied for the next few years and at my age, life is perhaps too short to get stuck with really complicated projects.

 

Pete

[Learstang]

You can do better than the Hobby Boss and Zvezda Il-2s. If you wish to do a good kit of the Il-2 in 1/72nd scale, do the Tamiya kit. It is the best kit of the 'arrow' (the late two-seater with the swept-back wings). The Airfix kit is rubbish, to put it politely. It resembles the Il-2 about as much as I resemble Chris Hemsworth. The shape is vaguely the same, but that's about it. If you wish to do a straight-winged two-seater, do the Academy kit. It's not perfect, but it's a good representation. The KP two-seater kits are good, as they're modified from the Smer mouldings (originally Intech). For a single-seater with metal wings, the Smer kit is a good one, as is the Academy kit, or the KP kit if you wish to do a field-modified two-seater (it was modified from the single-seater). If you wish to do any of the Il-2s with the wooden wings, I can recommend the Ark kit, as it is a re-pop of the old, but good Dakoplast moulding(s). The old KP kit of the La-5FN (which I do believe the Amodel kit is based upon) is not a bad kit at all, and is actually pretty accurate in its shape. By the by, and for what it's worth, I have written (and even had published, more's the wonder!) books on both the Il-2 and the Lavochkin fighters of the Second World War, so I'm reasonably knowledgeable about both.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

Edited June 27, 2021 by Learstang
Additional comment added.

[TonyW]

9 hours ago, PeterB said:

I have have plenty of other things to keep me occupied for the next few years and at my age, life is perhaps too short to get stuck with really complicated projects

 

That's where the poor old Airfix kit scores Pete.

Made up as a sixties nostalgia type build you can't go wrong. It would be accurate for the time, if not accurate for now.

Rather than build Ivan Timoshenko's plane on Wednesday the third during a snowstorm, before the fin got painted RAL 53, build a Saturday afternoon Special. Get cracking early enough and it will be done before Dr Who starts.

A simple, throwback build works wonders for me and usually puts a big grin on my face. The model below is missing a few bits that have dropped off over the years but I still like it. Hopelessly inaccurate in so many ways, but a conversation piece, even if I'm only talking to myself.

 

[AdrianMF]

Looks like an IL-2 to me! Thanks for illustrating the issue so perfectly. And you do a mean Winter finish…

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

PS - RAL 53?? Surely you mean A13? 
 

PPS - Looking forward to the La-5…

[PlaStix]

Right. I started reading your thread ready to follow your original build and now I'm ready to follow your La-5!!

Kind regards, 

Stix

[PeterB]

Hi Stx,

 

If I have time (and the inclination) I might have a go at cobbling together the Il-2 before the end of the GB but I have quite a lot on at the moment, and it looks like I may be able to go out and about a bit more before too long - we will see!

 

Pete

[PeterB]

Made a start. A bit basic but it has all the relevant bits in the cockpit - don't think much of the plastic though.

And now I need a bit of help - the kit comes with two cowlings with a Question Mark against them so I guess they are options but there is no explanation.

They seem to be identical except, as you can see the one on the left is open at the front and they provide a two row radial engine to go inside and a large disc to go on the prop shaft to partially close it. The other seems to have either a sort of grille or maybe it is meant to be a fan? The pics I have seen suggest I should go for the one on the right but does anybody know if that is correct and what the other one was used on - perhaps somebody like Jason @Learstang might know as I seem to recall he mentioned a book he wrote on the subject.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[Graham Boak]

They are cooling (or perhaps warming) vanes that fold up (and down?) into the cowling once the engine is up and running in cold weather.  So for a static model they should be closed but for an airborne one or one on the ground with a rotating propeller they should be open.

[Learstang]

Graham is correct - these were vanes, not fans, that rotated a certain degree around an axis to be either open or closed, according to the engine temperature. As the engines had a tendency to overheat, they would normally be open with the engine on, as Graham states.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

[PeterB]

Thanks guys.

 

I knew that the I-16 had a similar sort of arrangement of opening cooling slots, though they work differently. Guess it was a good idea in a Russian Winter! As all my pics are of planes on the ground the vents are of course closed.

 

Pete

[Graham Boak]

10 hours ago, Learstang said:

Graham is correct - these were vanes, not fans, that rotated a certain degree around an axis to be either open or closed, according to the engine temperature. As the engines had a tendency to overheat, they would normally be open with the engine on, as Graham states.

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

I was perhaps influenced by those on the Yak.11, which I believe are hinged inner and outer, and split in the middle.  The ones on the I-16 rotate in the same axis as the propeller shaft, so the blocking structure is permanently there and hence a larger forward area is needed.  The closed Lavochkin kit part is somewhat vague on this, but if the vane rotated as on the I-16, then the "open" part would still show something restricting part of the airflow.    If they rotated radially, then we'd see a series of thin struts as they appeared end-on, but still in the flow.  So I assumed that they folded away to the rear, as on the Yak.  I don't recall ever seeing a photo of a Lavochkin fighter with an open intake to prove it, or demonstrate their exact mechanism.

 

As for the Il.2: I don't go with this attitude of "accurate for the time".  It wasn't accurate for the time, it was wrong at the time and still is wrong.  (I choose a polite word, although the kit does not deserve it.)  We were just less aware of just how wrong,   It is worse now because much better kits are available - at peak there were some 13 Il.2 kits simultaneously available although far fewer are currently in the shops.  But people are free to waste their own time.

[Alex Gordon]

@Massimo Tessitori could be your friend here,he has this photo

 

 

on his site https://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/la5/cowling/cowling.html .

 

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this one Pete.

 

 

 

 

[PeterB]

1 hour ago, Alex Gordon said:

looking forward to seeing what you do with this one Pete.

 

 

 

 

Probably a right old mess as I have managed to break the radio mast off already!

Still, that can be easily replaced. Fit is not brilliant but I have seen worse.

 

Pete

[Alex Gordon]

At least you haven't fouled up the paint job.Flattened copper wire is good for antenna masts,easy to shape and resists all sorts of mishandling,no need to ask how I know .

[PeterB]

I tend to carve them from Contrail strutting as it is easy to sand to shape.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

Got most of the bits on - undercarriage less wheels and tail doors, plates over the exhausts at the side and intakes on top and bottom of the cowling - I opened out the latter at the front. 

Had to do a bit of filling around the various wing joints but the fit is better than I expected for an A Model reboxing of an old KP kit. Just about ready to start the light/dark grey over blue camo so heres a little basic background.

 

At the start of the “Great Patriotic War” the Soviet Air force still had a lot of old and obsolete Polikarpov I-15/153 biplanes and even more of the later I-16 monoplane fighters, though many were short down or destroyed on the ground during the opening couple of months. They also had new monoplane fighters such as the Mig-1 and Mig-3, Yak-1, and the LaGG-3 (Lavochkin, Gorbunov and Gudkov), which were somewhat better, though still outclassed by the German Bf 109 except perhaps at low level.

 

The Lagg-3 was of mixed construction, including a lot of wood in the fuselage and wings, and with a 1210HP Klimov M105PF inline engine, one 20mm cannon firing through the spinner, 2 x 7.62mm and 1 x12.7mm mg had a performance roughly similar to the Hawker Hurricane of the RAF. Like several other countries (Italy and Japan for example) Russian engine development was perhaps not quite as advanced as in the UK and Germany and Russian fighters were designed for relatively low level work, below say 16000ft. Semyon Lavochkin decided to follow other Russian designers and try a more powerful Shvetsov M-82 radial (derived from the US Wright R-1820 Cyclone) although it was of course considerably wider that the existing inline engine and this resulted in what was initially called the LaG-5, but more commonly the La-5. There were quite a few problems, particularly with engine cooling and throwing oil on the windscreen but it was clearly a step in the right direction and as problems were gradually worked out the airframe was refined and weight reduced and together with an improved engine – the M-82F (Forsirovanny = boosted) this resulted in the La-5F.

 

This was further developed with further improvements and yet another modified engine, the 1700 HP M-82FN with fuel injection and the resulting La-5FN entered production in mid to late 1943. Armed with 2 synchronised 20mm ShVAK cannon on top of the cowling the FN was capable of 402 mph at sea level dropping to 386 mph at 16400ft and low down was more than a match for most German fighters. A slightly cleaned up version with the same engine but slightly less fuel and one extra 20mm cannon was the La-7 introduced in late 1944, being about 10 mph faster, and the final versions were the La-9 which was all metal, had a totally new wing and a 1870HP Shvetsov Ash-82FNV engine, being slightly faster again and introduced just as the war ended and the La-11 which entered service a couple of years later

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[AdrianMF]

On 07/07/2021 at 18:55, PeterB said:

fit is better than I expected for an A Model reboxing of an old KP kit

I’ve been impressed with both of the KP kits that I have built and there are two more (under a tenner) in the stash calling me…

 

Your La-5 is looking super.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[PeterB]

The early La-5 and La-5F seem to have been painted in the Green/Black/Light Blue scheme but by the time the La-5FN entered service my sources including Massimo say the later grey scheme was in use – AMT 11 Blue Grey and AMT 12 Dark Grey over AMT 7 Blue. The kit instructions suggest painting the upper surfaces in Hu145 Medium Grey and Hu32 Dark Grey with Hu27 Sea Grey unders which does not sound quite right. I have some Sovereign Colourcoats AMT-7 so I have used that, together with some Tamiya XF87 Mazeru Arsenal IJN Grey and XF63 German Grey and it looks fairly close to me.

Bit of touching up to do as usual. I have painted the silvery metal panel behind the exhausts and also added a couple of decs to represent the silver lines on the cowling. You would probably expect a selection of markings, but this boxing reminds me of the old Airfix "Aces" series and you only get one set of decs, but more on that later.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

[PlaStix]

Hi Pete. That really looks to be progressing well! Very nicely done.

Kind regards,

Stix

[PeterB]

Thanks Stx,

 

In fact it is now done except for a finishing coat of varnish.

As I mentioned before this is a bit like the old Airfix "Aircraft of the Aces" series in that there is only one set of markings provided. In this case, according to the Osprey book on Lavochkin aces it is a plane flown in late 1943 by Snr Lt Georgii Baevskii of 5 GIAP (Guards fighter squadron) in the Ukraine. There is a bit of a story about the pilot - although he became qualified in December 1940 he was kept back as an instructor until April 1943 when 5 GIAP were short of pilots so he was "loaned" to them for 30 days, but ended up staying. He made his first kill on May 3rd and steadily built up his score, and in September 1943 his unit re-equipped with the La-5FN with him getting the above plane from new. As his score mounted he was allowed to take a wingman with him and carry out "free hunts" and on December 12th he and Pyotr Kal'sin were over enemy lines when they saw a Fw !89 recce plane attempting to land at Apostolovo. Attacking from the rear, Baevskii shot it down bringing his score to 17, but the rear gunner put a burst into his engne and he was forced to land in a nearby field. Going down over enemy lines was a major problem for Russian pilots - even if they managed to get home they were considered suspect by the neurotic Commissars who thought they might have been "got at" by the enemy, but fortunately his wingman landed in the field and picked him up. On return to base he was given some time off and did not rejoin his unit until February 1944, but then was badly injured in a crash in March when ferrying in a new La-5FN. He was not supposed to fly after that but once more rejoined 5 GIAP the following July flying White 62. By then however the Germans were retreating and 5 GIAP spent most of its time on escort duty with few chances for combat, so he ended the war with only 19 kills. He was offered both a Mig-3 and a La-7 but decided they were no great improvement on his La-5FN, which he continued to fly.

 

He is not perhaps one of the better known pilots of he 5FN, at least in this country, and I am a little surprised that Amodel did not go for somebody like Kozhedub - maybe they were saving the latter for his better known La-7, but I don't believe they ever released one of those in the end.

 

Incidentally the instructions show yellow prop tips but the pics I have show that the Russians did not use them, at least not on indigenous planes - if Lend-Lease planes arrived with yellow tips they kept them.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited July 15, 2021 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Ok, it's done and I will post it in the gallery.

It's not a bad kit - a bit crude but the detail and fit is reasonable and it looks the part, at least to me.

 

Cheers

 

Pete