Airfix Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17F ‘Fresco’ (A03091A) 1:72

[Mike]

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17F ‘Fresco’ (A03091A)

1:72 Airfix

 

 

The MiG-17 was developed following combat experience in Korea with the MiG-15, and while they look ostensibly similar, the later MiG-17 had a more sharply swept, thinner wing, and an all-moving tail plane that made handling at higher Mach numbers easier for the pilots.  Following testing of the new aspects of the prototypes, production began at the beginning of 1951, although due to delays while production of the trusted MiG-15 continued as a priority, no MiG-17s saw combat in Korea before peace broke out.  The fighter variant was designated MiG-17F, adding an afterburner to the unlicensed copy of the Rolls-Royce Nene engine that was made by Klimov as the KL-1, and the type received the NATO designation Fresco-C, with almost 1,700 airframes produced.  Poland license produced airframes as Lim-5, with almost 500 built, while China built a further 700+ as the Shengyang J-5.

 

Vietnamese airframes first saw action in the Vietnam war, after their pilots had been trained in China, flying 36 ‘gifted’ airframes from Soviet stocks, with more forthcoming later.  Initial interactions with US pilots caused consternation and confusion as to why an apparently outdated airframe had been able to claim victories over next generation supersonic aircraft.  Their agility was part of the issue, and once the speed advantage of the US aircraft had bled away, they could out-manoeuvre the larger US jets, and dodge the early guided missiles that were coming into use at the time.  Other countries also flew the MiG-17, some of them flying second or third hand airframes that were probably past their best, and North Korea are understood to still be using Chinese copies, although their airworthiness is particularly poor, estimated to be around 50%, with the airworthy aircraft likely to be easy prey to any modern aircraft that it had the misfortune to encounter.

 

 

The Kit

This is a reboxing with new decals of a 2019 tooling from Airfix, arriving in their standard red top-opening box, and inside are three sprues in grey styrene, one in clear, a decal sheet, and the instruction booklet that is printed on matt paper in muted colour, folded in three to fit inside the box.  Detail is good, encompassing the cockpit, gear bays, intake and exhaust, which should react well with careful painting.

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the cockpit, which is between the bifurcated intake trunk, with the curvature of the sides depicting this.  The floor and instrument panel with three decals are applied, adding a clear gunsight to the top, and more decals on the port sidewall, as shown in a scrap diagram nearby.  The bucket-like lower seat has the back added, and there are seatbelts moulded-in for you to paint in a light beige, unless you are installing the pilot that is included on the sprues, although some modellers (aka. Me) don’t like the ‘hands-on-lap’ pose.  The completed seat and control column are inserted into the cockpit, and it is set to one side while the exhaust is made, choosing whether to have the air-brakes on either side open or closed.  The two tapering halves have either a smooth outer surface, or one with a bay moulded-in, utilising the same exhaust lip, and the bulkhead that has the rear of the engine moulded into it.  Scrap diagrams at the top of the options show the resulting finish you can expect.  The cockpit, a pair of clear lights in the belly, 20 grammes of nose weight that should be fitted in a convenient tapered box at the front, and the exhaust assembly are all trapped between the two fuselage halves, noting the ledge that the cockpit insert fits against in the nose area, as shown in a scrap diagram, with two more showing how the exhaust assemblies should appear when correctly installed.  If you intend using the Airfix stand that is available separately, there are two flashed-over holes in the underside that you should ream out before closing the fuselage halves.  An insert that surrounds the nose gear bay underneath the nose is installed, fitting the closed gear bay door if you intend to portray it in-flight, leaving it out for gear down, and fitting the intake lip around the upper portion of the nose to complete the assembly.

 

 

 

The sharply swept wings are each built from upper and lower halves, and the lower halves have four flashed-over holes that you should open if you intend to hang additional fuel tanks under them on the finished model.  For gear up, the little indicator on the top of the wing for the gear is filed off, as well as a small block inside the gear bays, inserting the bay doors into the undersides, and a landing light in the port wing.  For gear down, the removals aren’t needed, the bays are left open to expose the detail moulded into the bay roof, and the landing light is utilised, gluing either option to the fuselage on long overlapping joints and taking care to maintain the correct angle during curing of the glue.  The all-moving elevators are pegged onto the moulded-in fin, adding a two-part rudder to the rear, which means you can deflect this if you wish.  The main gear struts are single parts, which accept a wheel and captive bay door, one on each side, adding a large inner door into the bays, and a small Y-shaped door at the outer edges.  The gear leg is inserted into the outer edge, adding a retraction jack that attaches to the bay roof forward and inboard of the legs.  The nose gear is a single part with the wheel moulded integral to the strut, adding two bay doors to the sides, and checking the next step to ensure you have it sitting correctly on the ground.  The three gun inserts are applied under the nose around the bay, then you should install the air-brakes closed, or opened with an actuator, depending on which option you chose earlier, with the assistance of some useful scrap diagrams that surround the relevant steps.  The canopy is provided as a separate windscreen and opener, with the rear-view periscope moulded into the canopy, and a short aerial sited behind and to the side of the canopy.  The last parts of the airframe are a pair of pitot probes, one on each wingtip.

 

If you drilled the holes under the wings for the fuel tanks earlier in the build, the two-part tanks are next on the agenda, fitting a tripod mount in a lateral groove near the front, and a longer two-point mount to the rear, one for under each wing.  As an extra, a two-part fuel drum has been included on the sprues to support the rear of the model on the ground, as early jets could be prone to tipping back off their nose gear when fuel was unloaded from the airframe, or they were disarmed.  It will also be useful if you forgot to put in any nose-weight earlier.

 

 

Markings

There are two decal options included in this boxing, one in aluminium, the other in camouflage as an aggressor in service of US forces.  From the box you can build one of the following:

 

• MiG-17F Fresco, Aircraft flown by Sqn.Ldr. Shalabi el-Hinnawy, CO No.1 Sqn., Egyptian Air Force, Egypt, 1956
• MiG-17F Fresco (Lim-5) ‘Have Drill’ Programme, Area 51, Groom Lake, Nevada, USA, 1969

 

Apologies for the quality of the profiles, but they had to be scanned from a less-than-stellar original.

 

 

 

 

Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.

 

 

Conclusion

A welcome return to the shelves for this iconic Cold War Warrior that is often mistaken for another, and whilst the engraved panel lines may be a little deep for some, a coat of primer should see those reduced to an acceptable level for the majority of modellers.

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of