Category: Soviet aircraft
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part Two – Well, No Escaping It…
Sooner or later I was going to have to start the kit. The box had to be opened and the sprue trees taken out. All 870 of them…The AS truck had already been built as part of a Soviet airfield but the main monster remained. Amodels are flashy mouldings., and slightly friable plastic. Many of…
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Petlyakov Pe-8 – Part One – Metro’s Bargains
Metro Models In Melbourne have a sale every now and again – chiefly the models that have sat in dusty neglect on their shelves. I take advantage, as I am also dusty and sit on a shelf much of the time… In this case the original price was some $ 60 and they applied a…
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MiG 15 Bis – Part Five – Between The Wars
Actually you have to be a lot more specific with the Middle East – which two?. Their wars arrive in succession like buses at Bull Creek railway station – one after another. This colour scheme is said to be late 60’s – somewhere in between the Sinai War and the 6-Day War. I have googled…
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MiG 15 Bis – Part Four – Short John Silver
Been waiting for years to use that line… The choice of the United Arab Republic’s Air Force as the scheme for this MiG 15 Bis was driven by the need to have some counterbalance to my Israeli Air Force collection. The time selected by Eduard for their decals is the early 1960’s – after the…
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MiG 15 Bis – Part One – Czeching Out The Next Stage
A few months ago I purchased an Eduard kit from Hobbytech Toys in Myaree – a Weekend Edition of a Czech crop duster. It was delightful. Encouraged, I returned to HobbyTech one Sunday and picked up a Profi-Pack Edition of this classic Soviet fighter. I wanted to see what differences Eduard would provide. I noted…
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Tupolev SB 2 – Part Four – Taipei
It is unfashionable nowadays to think of air raids from mainland China on Taiwan. But there was a time when it was a good idea… As when the Soviet Volunteer group that operated these bombers for the Nationalist Chinese Government essayed to fly to Taipei and bomb newly-arrived Japanese aircraft at the airfield before they…
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Tupolev SB2 – Part Three -Guessing Game
Meetings in the design bureau of a scale model company must be interesting to attend. Are there knives? Do people disappear? Do they call in dancing girls and order pizza? I ask because some of the decisions that come from these meetings seem to be motivated by strange desires. Who would have split the fuselage…
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Tupolev SB2 – Part Two – One-Man Pit
If you were a front gunner in a Tupolev SB2 you were wise to take a flask of tea and a novel with you for the flight. As you entered by a hatch under the nose, were out of touch with the rest of the crew, and were not given the key to the toilet,…
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Chinese Flying Animal – Part One – The Dollar Army
I need to find a Chinese airplane enthusiast who can tell me whether the Polikarpov I-16 in Nationalist Chinese service in the 1930’s and 40’s carried an animal’s name. When the Soviets used them they were the Ishak – mule. When the Spanish Nationalists flew them they were the Rata – rat. And the Spanish…
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Pigs To The Wrong Market
Will never make bacon. My tour down the airplane aisle of my local hobby shop showed very little new but I noticed that they have ordered and arranged the kits according to manufacturer again. And yet again the section of eastern European ex-soviet unaccountables is fully stocked. I do not think they’ve had a fresh…
The Little World 