Category: Soviet aircraft
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MiG-29 Fulcrum – Part One – Not 1959

I can’t understand why Airfix did not make a 50¢ model of a MiG-29 in 1959 when I was a kid. But, better late than never. The second kit in the Fifty Cent Fighter series is as neatly moulded as the Su-22 – and contains just as many traps for the unwary. I am delighted…
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How To Achieve Air Superiority

Without firing a shot. Easy…spread propaganda that you have a new plane that is many generations beyond what your rival has. Produce propaganda and animated simulations of the aircraft and make it do things that are frankly impossible while claiming that you have hundreds of them in secret underground bunkers. Make accurate scale models of…
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Yak 23 – Part Two – The Target

When there is nothing more left to get out of the toothpaste tube. The USAF had ways; ways of getting information from enemy air forces. In the case of the Royal Air Force they just bought the plans for the Merlin engine and turned them over to Packard for production. They boxed up all the…
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Yak 23 – Part One – Front Line Fighter?

Provided you are smart enough to put the front line as far away from you as possible. This was the thinking of the Soviet VVS when they donated Yak 23 fighters to the Poles and Czechs in the 1950’s. The Soviets had the MiG15 to defend the Motherland against the west and the inferior Yak…
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The Humble Modeller

How to beat ’em to the bottom. A reader of one of my other blogs writes that she is a humble person, but content. I believe she is telling the truth, and I salute her for the honesty. Many people could never bring themselves to this idea and would react badly if you mentioned the…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Seven – One Of A Hundred

No, I’m wrong. One of 93. The Soviets only made 93 of this bomber. They made them with three different engines, and experimented with the rest of the structure as well. One was used as a trans-oceanic transport to deliver Molotov to the UK and the USA…but the rest were used in penny packets for…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Six – Squeeze Me, Baby!

I feel like I’m going to split. The central bomb bay section of the Pe-8 dictates the spread of the fuselage. Had I not included the interior, and just decided to join the fuselage halves without cutting the bomb bay, all this post would not have happened. As it is, it did. as much as…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Five – A Wing And Several Prayers

I am never so nervous as when I see a plastic model aircraft with a multiple-part wing. I don’t mean a top and bottom – that’s normal. I mean a top and bottom outer, top and bottom inner, internal brace, wheel well, separate nacelles, and no cementing tabs. Add two gun positions and it starts…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Three – Stein’s Bomb Dump

And if that title doesn’t get me on an FBI list, nothing will. The explosives you see in the heading page are Soviet 250kg types – roughly equivalent to a British or American 500 pounder…though I don’t know if the fillings had equal explosive power. They will be attached to the bomb bay former and…

