Category: Soviet aircraft

• Ilyushin IL-10 – Part Two – Mystery Beast

  

  I should be interested to find out from whence the Mr Craft Ilyushin 10 mould has come. It has the hallmarks of either a very old 50’s or 60’s model from Frog or Novo or alternately a short-run kit form an unsuccessful Czech form. Perhaps it is a native product of Poland. I’ll never know.…

  Dick Stein

  March 19, 2020

  1:72 scale, Model Airplane, Polish models, Scale Models, Soviet aircraft, Uncategorized

  Ilyushin, short run kit, Soviet fighter

• Ilyushin Il-10 – Part One – The Beast

  

  I normally pass by the Russian planes in the kit shelves – they are not a subject that I have much knowledge of and the examples of the later ones are not common as museum pieces in the West. However, anything that is known as ” The Beast ” has got to be interesting.  The…

  Dick Stein

  March 17, 2020

  1:72 scale, Decals, Model Airplane, Polish models, Scale Models, Soviet aircraft, Uncategorized, Utility Models

  Ilyushin, Mister Craft, Polish model

• Tail Feathers

  

  I have always been curious about anything connected to the decoration of aircraft. Look out your picture book of WWII aircraft and turn to the RAF section. Note the insignia applied to the average fighter or bomber: a. Two upper wing roundels in red and blue – in some cases quite dark but quite large.…

  Dick Stein

  March 2, 2020

  1:72 scale, American aircraft, British aircraft, Canadian aircraft, Colour Schemes, French aircraft, German aircraft, Italian aircraft, Japanese aircraft, Miniature Philosophy, Model Airplane, Painting, research, Soviet aircraft, Uncategorized

  painted insignia, RAAF, RAF, RCAF, USAAF, USN

• Tupolev SB2 – Part Four – ” Red Is The Colour…”

  

  ” Of my true love’s national aircraft recognition insignia in the morning, as I rise…” This was an aviation folk song that Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie tried to promote in the 1930’s but it never really got off the ground, despite a headwind. Even when they offered to strike every Friday and bus in…

  Dick Stein

  February 15, 2020

  1:72 scale, Colour Schemes, Decals, Model Airplane, Painting, Russian models, Scale Models, Soviet aircraft, Uncategorized

  insignia, Spanish plane, Tupolev bomber

• Tupolev SB2 – Part Three – The Gallows…

  

  I never realised how much my painting stand looked like a gallows tree until I hung the Tupolev SB2 on it for undercoating and colour coats. Didn’t mean to be quite so morbid… But the fact that the SB2 was suspended there and took its paint so well pointed out the basic utility of the…

  Dick Stein

  February 14, 2020

  1:72 scale, Colour Schemes, Model Airplane, Painting, Russian models, Soviet aircraft, Tools, Workshop

  gallows, Painting, Tupolev bomber, workshop jig

• Tupolev SB2 – Part Two – In Russia Model Make You

  

  If I had been in any doubt looking at the crude plastic on the sprue runners, it was dispelled when I got to the ” Made In USSR ” stamped into the plastic. I was relieved. Up until that moment I had been worried that this kit was an elaborate practical joke and that Alan…

  Dick Stein

  February 13, 2020

  1:72 scale, Model Airplane, Painting, Russian models, Scale Models, Soviet aircraft, subassembly

  Russian, Soviet model

• Tupolev SB2 – Part One – Katyuska

  

  I was on tenterhooks when my daughter came back from Japan recently – I had tasked her with getting me a nice 1:72 model aircraft kit that we couldn’t get here in Australia. She obliged by searching out both a major and a minor hobby shop in Tokyo and bringing back 4 models – all…

  Dick Stein

  February 12, 2020

  1:72 scale, Hobby Shops, Model Airplane, Modelling Supplies, Russian models, Scale Models, Soviet aircraft, Utility Models

  Leonardo’s, Novo, Soviet model

• Douglas Havoc – Part Eight – The Faulty Gear

  

  Looks like 42547 will be sitting for a bit longer on the hardstand at RCAF WET DOG. The Russian ferry pilot has complained about the front landing gear strut – and we can’t say we disagree with him. It has been put on the service sheet for a rebuild. The front gear leg does indeed…

  Dick Stein

  November 9, 2019

  1:72 scale, Model Airplane, RCAF Wet Dog, Scale Models, Soviet aircraft, Workshop

  ALSIB, convoy, Douglas Havoc, tricycle landing gear

• Douglas A-20 Havoc – Part Seven – The Work Of Art

  

  Masking tape is one of the few artistic mediums overlooked in the catalogues of the famous galleries. Yet it is the chosen vehicle of expression for so many of us. And it is such  a transient thing – here one hour and stripped off and thrown in the trash the next. Truly a metaphor for…

  Dick Stein

  November 9, 2019

  1:72 scale, camouflage, Colour Schemes, Czech models, Model Airplane, Painting, Scale Models, Soviet aircraft, Uncategorized, Workshop

  ALSIB, Douglas Havoc, Mr. Color, olive drab

• Douglas A-20 Havoc – Part Three – Subassembly Time

  

  The Douglas Havoc by MPM models ( are they the same as Special Hobby? I’ll have to Czech up on that…) is old school in that it is all injection moulding – no resin or brass to confuse the issue. I welcome this but will have to do some cheap detailing in the cockpit if…

  Dick Stein

  November 4, 2019

  1:72 scale, Czech models, Model Airplane, Modelling materials, Scale Models, Soviet aircraft, subassembly, Workshop

  Douglas Havoc, fit, GSI Creos, putty, subassemblies