Ammo 1/48 MiG-17F/Shenyang J.5

The MiG-17 is a subsonic fighter produced in the Soviet Union from 1952 and was operated by air forces internationally. It was license built-built in China as the Shenyang J-5 and Poland as the PZL-Mielec Lim-6. The Mig-17 is still being used by North Korea and has seen combat in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Made famous by the Vietnam War, it was the primary enemy aircraft engaged in the skies over Vietnam by U.S. aircraft. The MiG-17 is able to maintain 8g turns and was the tightest turning fighter in the world until the F-16 entered service. It was one of the first production fighters in the world with an afterburner. Today, the MiG-17's famous heritage and great maneuverability has made it a star airshow performer all over the world.

The Spanish firm, AMMO, has released new tool 1/48 kits of the Mig-17F in both standard and premium editions. There are four boxings each of the standard and premium editions. The boxings differ in what decal options are provided, The premium editions include 3D printed detail parts and masks. This preview is of the MiG-17F/Shenyang J-5 standard edition kit. The kit has 86 parts molded in gray styrene, three parts molded in clear styrene, and 11 photo-etched brass parts. The clear parts are for the canopy, windshield, and landing light lens. The photo-etched parts provide, the wing fences, the canopy rails, rear view mirrors, and the ejection seat shoulder straps (curiously, the lap belts are molded on to the seat pan). All of the styrene parts are crisply molded and reflect the modern kit's trend toward true to scale thicknesses and tolerances. The exterior surface details are represented by very fine recessed lines. The ailerons, elevators, air brakes, and flaps are molded separately. The flap wells have a high level of detail that should be visible if the flaps are constructed in the down position. The cockpit has an 11 piece ejection seat, an instrument panel, rudder pedals, floor, sidewalls/consoles, joystick, gunsight, and a rear bulkhead. The outer sides of the sidewalls double as lengths of the intake duct walls. A one piece intake splitter encloses the one piece nose landing gear bay and joins with te cockpit sidewalls forming intake ducts that run all the way from the nose to the front of the engine. Only the afterburner section of the engine is provided.. The jet pipe is split into left and right halves to which separate parts for the nozzle, flame holder, and diffuser are attached. The exteriors of the afterburner walls form the floors of the speed brake bays. The one piece speed brakes have detailed interior walls and handed actuators. The nose wheel is molded in one piece, but the main wheels are molded in halves. All of the wheel's centers are detailed and have clearly delineated rims. Each landing gear leg has a separate retraction strut as do the inner main landing gear doors. Each outer main landing gear door is in upper and lower parts. The gun barrels and their fairings are molded separately from the fuselage. The only external stores provided are a pair of drop tanks.

The kit provides six decal options:

Shenyang J-5 of the Vietnamese Popular Air Force. This scheme has a two greens and a tan segmented camouflage over light blue undersides (this option duplicates the scheme on a Lim 6 in the Pima Air & Space Museum and is probably not authentic)

Shenyang J-5 of the 932nd Fighter Regiment VPAF in 1969. Fuselage and upper sides of wings and horizontal stabilizers has medium green mottling over dark green.. Undersides of wings and horizontal stabilizers in natural metal.

Shenyang J-5 of the 923rd Fighter Regiment VPAF in 1967. This scheme has a dark green “lizard” pattern camouflage over natural metal overall.

Shenyang J-5 of the Popular Liberation Army Air Force, China in 1962. Natural metal overall.

Shenyang J-5 of the Popular Liberation Army Air Force, China. Dark blue and light blue segmented camouflage over natural metal undersides.

Shenyang J-5 of the Korean People's Army Air Force, North Korea 2018. Natural metal overall.

The MiG-17 has been kitted by multiple manufacturers in all of the popular scales. I haven't seen all of the kits, but I'm confidant that this new AMMO kit is the best of the bunch. The kit is well engineered, has retrained, but effective surface detail, and comes with a generous selection of decal options. The overall detailing is finely rendered and comprehensive. Some may not care for the high parts count, but the parts breakdown makes sense and you don't get the feeling that a separate part is provided just for the sake of having a separate part. Recommended to MiG-17 enthusiasts across the Galaxy.

Rob Hart