Airfix 1/72 MiG-15bis

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 was a jet fighter developed for the USSR by Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich. The MiG-15 was one of the first successful swept-wing jet fighters, and it achieved fame in the skies over Korea, where early in the war, it outclassed all straight-winged enemy fighters in daylight. The MiG-15 also served as the starting point for development of the more advanced MiG-17 which was still an effective threat to supersonic American fighters over North Vietnam in the 1960s. The MiG-15 is believed to have been the most widely produced jet aircraft ever made, with over 12,000 built. Licensed foreign production perhaps raised the total to over 18,000. The MiG-15 is often mentioned along with the North American F-86 Sabre in lists of the best fighter aircraft of the Korean War and in comparison with fighters of other eras.

Most early jets were designed like piston-engined fighters with straight wings, limiting their high speed performance. German research during World War II had shown swept wings would perform better at transonic speeds, and Soviet aircraft designers were quick to take advantage of this information. There are claims of Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich (lead designers of the "MiG" bureau) being heavily influenced by the Focke-Wulf Ta 183. The abortive late-war German jet had swept wings and bore a resemblance to the later MiG-15, but the two aircraft are different in structure and general design. The Soviets did seize plans and prototypes for the Ta-183, but the majority of Focke-Wulf engineers (in particular, Hans Multhopp, who led the Ta-183 development team) were captured by Western armies; therefore, it could be argued that the MiG-15 design team drew some limited inspiration from the Ta-183, but there is insufficient evidence to prove it was heavily influenced. Currently, many sources claim that the MiG-15 is an original design benefiting from German research, but conceived, designed, engineered, and produced by the Soviets.

(source: Wikipedia)

The new tooling Airfix Kit of the Fagot comes in three sprues plus one for the clear parts. The moldings are nice with panel lines a bit wide and deep to my taste. The surface of the parts is a bit rougher than one would expect from a new tooling, but it looks good in the end. The only minus I could find were some ejector pin marks which are at places where they could be seen, especially on the inside of the gear doors.

The instructions are very good with extra pages for colors and markings printed in color.

For this new tooling Mig-15 I can't say much, I just followed the instructions. It almost felt together and I did not use any filler. This may be because I used extra thin cement and a good pressing, this way I only had to sand away some excess.

I did not add any extras this is just an out of the box build.

I decided to do the North Korean version with this “spaghetti” camouflage scheme. If you look at that scheme the first which comes to mind is – wow all that free hand lines on that small plane. Well I do airbrush for quite a while now and I know my hands are steady enough to do this freehand, so the painting followed these steps: first a coat of silver at the cockpit entrance area and the side walks; then some salt there. My second try on the salt method. I'm still not sure if that method really is worth the effort, but then it could just be me. After that a complete coat of a self mixed green tone followed. This green looks like a lighter olive drab. Then the masking with “spaghetti” – no not really noodles but something similar. I rolled blue tack or in my case yellow tack very thin, as thin as spaghetti and laid those on top of the green. Then a sand tone on top of that was sprayed. After removing the tack-spaghetti it just looked what I was hoped. Then followed the masking for the underside and a super dark brown coating. I just did not want it all black.

A Future coat before the decals and then I sprayed the white areas for the insignias cause my references showed white based North Korean red stars and the decals did not provide the white base they were clear. I'm still not sure if that was the right decision but it looks better this way – well at least for me.

After a last future coat some weathering and a semi flat coat ended it. For weathering I used some dark brown wood paint on top and black on the underside.

It is a real nice representation of the Mig-15 that’s sure and it’s a nice little kit for a small project for in between. There are tons of possibilities to paint a Fagot, so to get one is always worth it.

As always the internet and for scheme research those books:

Warbird Tech Mig 15 Fagot

Walk Around Mig-15 Fagot

Soviet Mig-15 Aces of the Korean War

Martin Pohl

March 2012