The Little World

I am always a little chary of Hasegawa plastic. it is quite a bit more brittle than that used by the other makers like Airfix or the Czech firms. I appreciate the fact that it can be drawn to finer points, but I dread cutting things off the sprue trees for fear of crazing. The canopies are the worst.

Still, they do make good kits. And they make a lot of them. The brown colour of this MiG 21 is undoubtedly related to its service with the Egyptian Air Force but it is still a bit startling.

As this is an older Hasegawa offering, there is little to be seen in the cockpit. I got a seat in there and some paint but had to be content with that. There is a pilot to fill most of the internal volume. Also an ill-fitting dashboard decal that I am not even going to try to slide off the backing paper. It’ll get trimmed with scissors and glued in paper and all.

The wheels and tyres are amazingly big – they look like a cartoon version, but I have checked other MiG 21 kits from different makers an they all seem to be the big doughnut size. I see that Hasegawa has taken note of the way the main gear doors hang at 40º away from the gear leg. There are clear pictures of this on the net. They do not provide actuators, but the spares box has plenty of these.

And the wheel well and leg colour? Seems to be khaki brown everywhere, So I’ll just do as I’m told.