AFV Club 1/48 MiG-28

AFV Models decided to branch off into airplanes in the early 2010s and the F-5E family was one of their first airplane and currently only aviation model kits. Unlike their armor kits, this AFV plane kit comes with only a few sprues in a solid cardboard box.

There are 10 sprues (nine different ones with a duplicate for weapons) including the parts for the later F-5E Sharknose Aggressor version including updated canopy + a small sprue of PE parts as well as some polycaps for weapons/fuel tanks if you want to do another version of the F-5E aggressor that is so equipped. The parts are mostly flash free, but there is some clean up required (at least on my copy of the kit.) The decals are mostly for the real life F-5E aggressor planes as the Mig-28 of the Top Gun movie fame only requires a mere four decals.

The instruction booklet is decent and provides locations of which part goes where as well as which parts belong to which version of the F-5E you want to build while the paint call outs are for several different brands of paint including Gunze/Mr Color.

This was one of the easiest aircraft kits I have ever built. I was kind of gearing up for a mental battle with this like every other F-5 aircraft I've built, but I was wrong.

I started off with the mid section and wings. It was pretty easy to put together. I was quite impressed with the kit and figured it was going to be a breeze (reality sez, hold my beer.)

I painted instrument panel and interior of the cockpit first with grey Stynylrez primer and then Vallejo Air USAF light grey. The various details were painted out with a brush as I decided to use my mediocre brush skills instead of using 3D decals as I have with recent builds. I painted the various canopy retraction mechanism parts Dark Gull Grey, black and/or USAF light grey. Next I attached the IP and some of the canopy retraction mechanism into the cockpit tub then attached it to one of the nose fuselage halves which I glued together using CA glue for the external seams and regular glue for the internal ones.

The cockpit/nose section needed the most attention with sandpaper with three small seams to fill/sand down. Once these were dealt with I glued the nose into the main fuselage. It fit together very nicely except the underside where there is a slight noticeable ridge, but it is barely seen so I wasn't going to spend much effort to fix it. A little bit of plastic putty smeared into the gap and cleaned with damp Q-tips was all the effort I took.

Later, I did run into a spot of trouble when the nose landing gear well decided to partially detach itself from the underside surface of the nose while I was working on sticking the landing gear in. I highly recommending reinforcing the nose wheel well piece with a piece of sprue or plastic long enough to meet the inner surface of the topside of the nose to keep it braced in. I ended up soaking the area with some Revell AG Contacta glue while I ripped out the instrument panel and shoved some solid metal rods to hold the nose wheel well in place while the glue dried.

In a fit of sanity, I kept off the aft engine section till after painting.

I masked off the cockpit and sprayed the model with black Stynylrez primer. Once the primer was fully cured, I polished down the surface with various grades of polishing pads. Next I sprayed the underside of the Mig-28 (both main fuselage and aft section) with the ironic shade of NATO black (the photos of the movie aircraft show a slight two tone camouflage scheme) and the topside with Tamiya and Gunze Gloss black. I ended up polishing the fuselage as smooth as I could before spraying on a final coat of NATO black and Gloss black.

The engine section was sprayed Vallejo Metal Color coat Aluminum with a barely noticeable hint of Vallejo gold to show some heat damage. The various main wheel wells and air brake wells were masked off and painted using Vallejo Air Silver.

When the paint was dry, I added the various star and number decals (a grand total of eight!) I would need to make a Mig-28. The Top Gun movie Migs lacked the Bort number, but I decided for “accuracy” to add the Bort number as Soviet, er, /redacted/ planes would have a Bort number. I found no issues with the decals.

For a final coat, I sprayed Vallejo clear flat on the bottom and Vallejo gloss everywhere else.

The canopy parts were first masked off and painted Xtracrylix Dark Gull Grey for the interior color then when it was dry, I sprayed on a topcoat of Gunze acrylic Gloss Black. Next the resin wheel set I used was first primed with grey Stynylrez primer.

Meanwhile I used Furball Decals vinyl masks as well as home made masks made from low tack tape with my circle cutter for the resin wheels to cover the rims which were painted with Vallejo Metal Color Aluminum. Next I attached the vinyl masks for the canopy seals while using low tack tape to cover everything else. I sprayed on a dirty white paint to represent the canopy seal. It looked better than the ones I made for the 1/72 F-4C which look over scale. The tires were painted Tamiya German Grey XF-63 and when dry, the wheels were removed from the mold stub.