Pioneer 1/72 Berenziak-Isaev Bi-1

Berenziak-Isaev’s BI-1 interceptor took to the air in May 1942 under rocket power, months after the Me-163A prototype flew but a year before the Me-163B’s first powered flight. Nine prototypes of the Soviet’s point-defense fighter, with its short endurance and volatile fuels (Nitric Acid and Kerosene, ahem), ended up being tested into 1945, at speeds of up to 500 mph. The straight-winged aircraft, though slower than the swept-wing Komet, could climb nearly vertically.

In the end, this Soviet aircraft remains an interesting “what if” in aviation history. Fifty aircraft were slated for production but a fatal accident, as well as promising development in piston-driven fighters, put paid to that plan. In Carmel Attard’s review of the kit I will build, He notes that 20 production airframes were left uncompleted. Presumably, they became herring-tins after the Great Patriotic War ended. A replica of the aircraft exists in Moscow today and another in the Central Air Force Museum in Monino, Russia (posed next to a Lend-Lease Airacobra).

The BI-1’s brief career contributed to Postwar Soviet efforts with rocket engines, the two chief engineers going on to work on cruise missiles and liquid-propelled rockets for the USSR’s space program.

I have known about the BI-1 since the early 1970s, when punk-kid me walked into Beacon Bookstore, just down the street from my modeler’s Mecca, Bob’s Hobby Shop in Richmond, VA. Both are long gone, but I do have William Green’s Rocket Fighter, one of the Ballantine series of WW2 books that retailed for a dollar. Beacon’s management hid the “war books” way in the back of the shop, where geeky kids could find them without incurring the wrath of hippies stopping by for Mother Jones and Rolling Stone.

In that book appeared an utterly cool warplane wearing skis. Not a reuseable skid like a Komet, but actual landing gear. That feature, to a model-nerd, put the BI-1 up there with the Me-262.

In 1971, however, the idea of a kit for a BI-1 was as ridiculous as, say, me winning Bob’s model contest.

I’m surprised that no mainstream companies outside Russia have released a Berenziak-Isaev; it’s a significant part of aviation history. And cool.

The thing could have become operational, and examples did fly, unlike many oft-kitted Luft ’46 subjects. It looks deadly, yet bluntly businesslike, as a worker-built, people’s war machine should, comrades!

After daydreaming over Green’s book one day, I stumbled across a nearly 30 (!) year-old MM review of a Modelart kit in my preferred 1/72 scale and decided that I needed a copy.

Instead, I found a different Russian kit at the usual online auction site. Then I discovered that Carmel built and reviewed it at MM, with fine results. I hope to do half as well! I paid under $15, with shipping. Finally, I had a BI-1 in the stash from Pioneer Models, and the box art reveals it as a 1994 first issue. It shows the interceptor climbing steeply, the sort of nostalgic box-art that takes me right back to Bob’s well-stocked shelves. The kit was last molded as “Soviet Jet Fighter” (sic) by a company called MSD in the 2010s.

My example looks straightforward enough: a tiny aircraft, about the size of a Komet, molded in light gray plastic with engraved control surfaces and fine raised panel lines plus…rivets. Little ones, so maybe they will stay in place when I built it. The kit features a notional interior and what looks to be a nice canopy. The parts-count is low. I cannot tell if it has skis, but if not I plan to fabricate them. Green’s book includes excellent photos of the landing gear and an exploded diagram to show where I might add a few details.

The kit’s instructions, in English and Russian, are well done and provide a good deal of historical information. Paint schemes span four aircraft. You can build a straight-out BI-1 or the BI-M2 version with two Dushkin D-1a jet engines mounted on the wingtips. I’ve not decided which to build, yet, though a plane with skis, 2 jet engines, AND a rocket in winter camo has a certain Crazy-Ivan appeal.

If you are hungry for a BI-1, Pioneer’s kit can be had at auction sites, under various reboxings. Some may be the Modelart kits. Mikro-Mir produced a BI-1 in 1/48 and, according to a post at Britmodeler, a 1/32 3D printed example can be found. KV Models produced a mask for MSD and other 1/72 kits I’ve never seen before; it should work for Pioneer’s earlier examples.

So be brave, workers! Are your skills not up to the task? The People are counting on you!

Soon I’ll do a quadruple build of this subject, a Bell X-1, an Me-163B, and a Northrop X-4 Bantam. I know, the last is a jet, but it looks enough like a Komet to be inducted into the steely-eyed missile man club.

I will provide a completely fictious history of my particular BI-1 (or BI-2M) and pose it beside a J7W Shinden when I do the build review. That’s after I pick an interesting paint scheme, much as Carmel did.

Winter camo? Why not! Funny where a book that is 54 years old will lead you!

Green, W. Rocket Fighter. New York: Ballantine, 1971

Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bereznyak-Isayev_BI-1

Joe Essid

February 2025

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