The I-4 was one of Tupolev's first successful fighter aircraft of the 1930's. Made mostly of corrugated metal following information gained from Junkers's aircraft of Germany, it was produced in fair numbers for the day (around 300). Tupolev was mostly known for his bomber aircraft, but the I-4 was a fine aircraft for its day. Liked well by those who flew it, it was able to carry out both fighter and light bomber duties. Unusual for any day, the sesquiplane I-4 was able to carry rocket launcher tubes above the wings. This would have been impossible in a fabric covered aircraft. The I-4 was also carried as a parasite fighter on the TB-1 Bomber. Two were carried on top of the wings of the large, four engine bomber, and must have been a sight to observers on the ground.

Encore kits come from a variety of sources. They are then repackaged in the US with very good instructions and a variety of decal options. This kit was made in the Ukraine. General detail on the kit is quite good, but not really up to standards of today. I would place it as a good short run kit in overall quality. Many of the parts are a bit oversized, and all suffer from some level of mold mismatch. This is obvious on the upper and lower one piece wings as well as other parts. Nothing that cannot be dealt with. The relatively soft grey plastic is easy to work with, but care needs to be taken when removing the smaller parts as they break rather easily. I used a fine toothed razor saw to remove these parts. The decal sheet is basically just stars and numbers, typical of Soviet aircraft. Color schemes are equally routine with the I-4s in green over light blue and the ANT-5 in overall silver. There are sufficient parts to make any of the three versions. In fact, there are a very large number of parts left over, depending on which version you build.

First thing I did was to figure out which version I wanted to build and then clean up all the mold lines. I decided to build the I-4, so that meant I discarded the prop with the rounded spinner, the short lower wing, the non-rounded cylinder covers, and the pointed rudder. After a rather long time cleaning up parts, the cockpit was assembled. You get floor, seat, stick and rudder pedals. All very reminiscent of Frog kits. This whole deal was painted aluminum as was the interior of the fuselage. The instrument panel was painted flat black and installed in the cockpit. There was much cleaning up needed on the cockpit opening before the cockpit was installed and the fuselage glued together. Naturally the fit was not the best and needed clamped. When the front was glued, the large sleeve  for the propeller shaft was installed.

Once the fuselage glitches were filled and sanded, the lower wing was installed. That was also filled and sanded at the front and rear where the fit was not good. The tail skid was installed and then it was on to the fin and horizontal stabilizers. The I-4 uses a squared off rudder and despite the tab and slot, it fits where it touches. The directions show that the aft tab on one of the horizontal stabilizers needs removed. In reality, the entire horizontal stabilizer needs about 1/8 inch removed from the inside to make the stabilizers  line up properly with the rudder. Fortunately the corrugations make excellent alignment guides. Installing the stabs as indicated will give them about a 35% forward sweep! It is as if the stabilizers were designed to fit the fuselage, not flush with the tail. The eventual butt fit seems to be holding just fine.

Now on to the part that I dreaded when I finally opened the kit; all those cylinder heads.  Each one was carefully cut off and cleaned up. I removed the mounting pin from the rear of them as they didn't fit properly. I then started placing them as close to each other as possible, trapping the exhaust pipes in them as I went. As luck would have it, by the time I got to the bottom, there wasn't room on the last one for the exhaust! Fortunately, they are so close together that a casual look at the kit won't be enough to spot the problem. It was after this that I decided not to drill out the exhaust pipes!

Moving to the bottom of the aircraft, the landing gear parts were removed from the sprues and glued to the bottom of the aircraft. There are holes in the fuselage for the forward part of the strut, but not for the back, so the tab needs removed and the strut just glued on to the bottom of the wing. After that dried, the bomb racks were installed. Rather crude assemblies, but I guess they worked. I decided not to install the rocket launchers on the top wing so removed the mounting lugs for them.  The gunsight was also installed. This kit has no windscreen. It was at this time, before installation of the top wing, that I figured the kit should be painted.

According to the instructions, the upper surfaces are dark green and the lower light blue. They give FS numbers for appropriate matches, but frankly it really doesn't matter which colors one uses as long as they are close. Since I don't have a bunch of Russian paints, I decided to use some nice RLM colors. The undersides were painted RLM 65 blue and the uppers RLM 71 Dark Green. Looks rather nice. There does need to be some masking around the engine area as the whole nose was dark green upper and lower. The wing and tailplane struts were painted light blue, while the gear struts were green. Wheels were light blue.

After all this was done, it was time to continue on to finish up the aircraft. The first item on the agenda was the installation of the  gun barrels (which were painted gunmetal) and then the upper wing. As with the landing gear, the attachment points are given as holes in the fuselage and upper wing. Again, there are no tabs on the interplane and wing struts to fit into these holes. The tail struts on the other hand do have nice attachment holes, however since the horizontal stabilizers had to be trimmed back to fit, the struts are too long. A simple matter of trimming them back to fit.

One very helpful alignment piece for the upper wing is on the gun sight, so don't cut off what looks like a useless appendage. If it weren't for this piece, fitting the upper wing would have been very difficult. There are no slots of any kind on the upper section of the lower wing into which the lower part of the wing strut fits. It is just a case of 'glue it where it touches'. Fortunately once the glue dries, it is a rather sturdy construction.  It also makes me wonder what kind of visibility the pilot had if there is this huge piece right in his central line of vision! Then it was time for the wheels. Naturally, the holes in the hub were too small so they were drilled out with a needle file and glued in place.

All that was left were the bombs and the prop, but first, the decals. The areas they were to fit on were brushed with Future clear gloss acrylic a couple of times to give a nice, gloss surface for the decals. The decals themselves are very thing and comfortingly opaque. They did need trimming as there was a lot of carrier. Once in place, Champ setting solution was used to help them snuggle down into the corrugations. In fact, I needed several applications of Champ as the inevitable air bubbles appeared and required the multiple doses. The last things added were the prop and the bombs. The bombs are rather oddly shaped, being wider than they are tall. Must be a Bolshevik design! They were painted olive drab and attached to the bomb racks.

This is my first Encore kit and though it wasn't really a simple build, I was quite pleased with the result. Those of you who are prone to superdetailing will find this a great starting point. It builds no worse than a limited run kit and a lot better than a few mainline kits I have constructed over the years. It is also a neat little aircraft that looks nice in a section of mid-war birds. Best of all, no rigging!!

Recommended to those with an interest in 20s and 30s aviation. Not for the beginner.

 Believe it or not, there are darn few of them. The best I found was in Scale Aviation Modeller International , Volume 1, Number 9, September 1995.

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