The seat, side switches panel and stick are al well detailed and require careful painting. All assemble into a tub which is then glued into the top of the fuselage. The cockpit alone took me a week! Interior is blue angel blue, I couldn’t find any, and used satin French Blue.

I painted the inside framing of the canopy and windscreen as this can be well seen. The clear parts are superb, and require also careful painting. As with all Italeri kits there is no pilot, so I trimmed an Esci figure to match - this one is waving from the cockpit to his comrade in the foreground. Not only can you have the canopy up, you can have open bomb bays with laser guided bombs and what look like rockets, the wheel bays are chock full of detail and the wheels have nuts and bolts on them. No problems needing filler, although you will need to be careful the wings don’t droop. I advise gluing each with 24 hours of each other to let them fully set.

Airbrakes, with detail underneath can be raised which is just what I have done.

There are two painting options. One is overall black and the other is grey upper with white undersides.

I opted for the all black scheme - if well undercoated, there’s no trouble with the black plastic. The bomb bays are also blue. You get two bays, and three sets of weapons (two bombs, two rockets) So I put the bomb in the front, rockets in the back and the other on a trolley.

The decal sheet has masses of stencils although both sets are identical, simply one set being black the others red. However this is the let down - the stencils are too fiddly and the insignia too thick, and have have horrible white edges - a real let down. Raid your spares box, although decal fix may sort them out.

Decent Russian kits are rare - this one is superb! Thoroughly recommended for more advanced painters - certainly not one for kids.

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