Greetings Modellers
and a Happy New year!
Right then here
we have another rare kit for you a 1:72 Yak-38U two seater. I
picked up this kit on Ebay about 2 years ago (not a clue who made it). Although
at the time I thought it was a single seater, when it in fact it
contained the options for both. The seller described it as a "Soviet
manufactured kit, that was a bit rough around the edges". Now I have
built some really poor kits in my time, you know the sort, tons of flash, loads
of filler and the thing fits were it touches. So imagine my horror when I
open the jiffy bag and a series of discoloured/dirty lumps of plastic fell out
along with hand drawn instructions and what a presume were the decals. I am not
kidding you when I say the moulded parts were surrounded by thick flash (in some
place's as thick as the sprues themselves) and contained bits of metal, streaks
of different coloured plastics and God knows what else! To add insult to
injury the kit was missing the canopy for the single seater! Well totally
disgusted with my purchase, and with a feeling that there was no way anyone
could make a model out of that, it went back in its bag, and was slung at
the bottom of my build pile.
And there it lay
mocking me. But as time went on I realised that this has the possibility of
being a really interesting kit, because how many manufactures out there do the
single seater let alone the trainer! So just before Xmas I plucked up the
courage to start it, and what a marathon it turned out to be! Pushing the
boundaries of man and filler to the limits! I have never sanded anything as much
as this kit, every part had to be cut out, filled and sanded (and no this was
not a vac formed model before anyone ask's!). Nothing and I mean nothing fitted
flush together! I did take some photos of the build (mainly because I thought no
one would believe how poor it was) which I have lost, however I have taken
a snap of the unused nose cone. Which compared to the rest of the kit wasn't to
bad! After two weeks of sanding and shaping, it finally looked something like
and the first coat of paint was hand brushed on. So imagine my horror when I
caught my two year old son playing with several broken pieces of the assembled
kit on the floor of my study. His big brother having kindly unlocked the
door for him, DOH!
By this point in the
proceedings I was on the verge of a nervous break down, and my British stiff
upper lip was beginning to wobble. But after much stifled swearing, half a
tube of filler and yet more wet and dry. The kit was returned to its original
painted state. I'm quite proud of the way it turned out considering I'm
not a fantastic modeller and what I had to work with, the kit isn't very
accurate. But hey, your lucky it even resembles the aircraft its supposed to be!
Click on
images below to see larger images
Looking at the
finished model there are a few glaring inaccuracies compared to the real
aircraft. The fuselage on the real plane is extended rearwards to balance
out the extra length of the twin cockpits, this is not catered for on the kit.
Also the kit instructions place weapons pylons on the trainer but in real life
they were never fitted (as far as I know). However I did find a very interesting
illustration showing the two seat U model in Ukrainian markings with pylons. So
I thought it would be fun to give my plane Ukrainian insignia! I believe
they were only operated by the Russian Navy, any body out there know different I
would be very interested to find out! Also the kit did not include any antenna,
"oddrods" or external flight sensors, so I scratch built all of
these from bits of old sprue and dress making pins to add a bit of realism!
I know I have
spent nearly the entire article badmouthing this kit, but I did get allot
of satisfaction out building it. I love unusual subjects (and Soviet cold war
jets) and this really did fit the bill. I would love to know were this kit
came from, so if anyone has any ideas I would like to hear from them.
Regards
Oliver
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