The Little World

My stable of Soviet fighter planes of WW 2 is very small – one Yak and one Lavotchkin. Not even a MiG yet. But they all seem to share a similar look – the look of fighters that have been developed by people who don’t quite know what the shape should be. Oh, they are smooth enough, but the proportions of the vertical stablizers and the fuselages suggest schoolboy drawings come to life.

The Ilyushin IL-10, on the other hand, has what look to be better proportions – even if it is really a ground attack aircraft. It certainly has enough wing area to support what must have been a fair amount of armouring.

But the cramped cockpit is interesting. There’s no attempt to give the gunner any really wide field of fire – they have just decided to let him squirt out the back with a heavy machine gun. And they’ve crowded him in with the pilot in what may be an armoured citadel area. At least they could talk to one another…

The paint mix is simple – Mr. Color Russian Green for the top and a Mr. Hobby light blue for the bottom. The raised panel lines do not look too bad and I trust the Polish decals will fall over them easily. The plane is going to be in Hungarian markings but they are not complex.