1/72 Eduard MiG-21MF

Gallery Article by Bob TheDoc on June 26 2019

20th anniversary of 'Kargil Vijay Diwas' (Kargil Victory Day)

 

      

This is Eduard's superb offering of the MiG-21MF, built from the Interceptor Profipack boxing. It's probably the most detailed 72nd scale kit I've ever seen - but the engineering is such that it all goes together beautifully, except for a step at the lower fuselage between the wing section and the fuselage (though I suspect this was due to some error on my part).

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This build is to commemorate the 20th anniversary of 'Kargil Vijay Diwas' (Kargil Victory Day), which marked the official end to the limited Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999. No.17 Squadron of the Indian Air Force - the Golden Arrows, took part in the Kargil operations and were in the thick of things for the entire duration of the conflict. Initially they operated in the FR (Fighter Recce) role, subsequently switching to a Strike role. This build represents the latter, and the aircraft is armed with two 250kg bombs, which was the weapon load they carried in that theatre. I've built it as C-1609, a MiG-21M which was there and flew in Kargil.

The kit is built OOB, with some scratch-building to make it accurate for the IAF, and some to replace a few parts swallowed by the carpet monster. The blue pre-painted cockpit PE had to be carefully repainted grey to match the colour of IAF MiG-21 cockpits. The bombs and their fuses, mounting shackles etc are mostly scratch built too. Paints are a mix of various brands of artists' and modellers' acrylics, decals are Bright Spark for the national insignias and self-printed for a few others. Photo references show these aircraft as very clean with immaculate paintwork, so that's how I've kept the finish.

(At the end I've added some WIP shots too).

Best wishes from India...

Bob TheDoc

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Photos and text © by Bob TheDoc