Fly 1/48 Lavochkin La-7, previewed by Scott Van Aken

KIT #:	48035
PRICE:	$34.00 delivered from Poland
DECALS:	Three options
REVIEWER:	Scott Van Aken
NOTES:	Reboxed Gavia kit. Includes canopy mask and resin parts

The Lavochkin La-7 (Russian: Лавочкин Ла-7; NATO reporting name: Fin) was a piston-engined single-seat Soviet fighter aircraft developed during World War II by the Lavochkin Design Bureau. It was a development and refinement of the Lavochkin La-5, and the last in a family of aircraft that had begun with the LaGG-1 in 1938. Its first flight was in early 1944 and it entered service with the Soviet Air Forces later in the year. A small batch of La-7s was given to the Czechoslovak Air Force the following year, but it was otherwise not exported. Armed with two or three 20 mm (0.8 in) cannon, it had a top speed of 661 kilometers per hour (411 mph). The La-7 was felt by its pilots to be at least the equal of any German piston-engined fighter. It was phased out in 1947 by the Soviet Air Force, but served until 1950 with the Czechoslovak Air Force.

THE KIT

According to Scalemates, this is the Gavia kit (which has also been reboxed by Eduard and Hasegawa), so the tooling harkens back to 2001, making it not exactly a new kit. However, Fly has upgraded this particular kit with a new resin forward cowling and upper cowling so it can represent the three gun version of the La-7. In addition, Fly has added a set of canopy masks.

In all respects, the plastic is from the Gavia offering. The two main sprues are very nicely molded and show just how simple a kit the La-7 actually is. The lack of alignment pins and sockets keeps away any problems with sink areas and the ejector pin marks are limited to some small stubs on the inside of the wings, tailplanes and fuselage. These will be hidden once the kit is built. Despite the age of the tooling, the kit parts still look quite nice.

The cockpit is equally basic with a seat, stick, pedals and some sidewall detail bits. Interestingly, the first step in the construction is the wheel well bulkhead and oil cooler inlets. The prop has separate blades that are keyed and thanks to the large cooling fan, no engine is required, cutting back on painting time. A three piece canopy is given, though there is no indication that this is designed to be able to be left open.

Instructions are quite good, providing several paint manufacturer options. They are in full color, which makes painting rather easy. A decal is provided for the instrument panel. There are three markings options. The box art plane is from the fall of 1945 and is in AMT-11/12/7. Another Soviet plane from 1947 is in AMT-4 green over AMT-7 light blue grey. The third option is a Czech plane from 1950 in Czech olive green overall, making it the easiest of the three to paint. The decal sheet is nicely printed and should work well. Note that the metal straps around the cowling will need to be painted on so it recommended locating some aluminum decal stripes to duplicate these. Fantasy Printshop can help in this area. Also note that I darkened the decal sheet image so you can see the white parts.

Many years ago I built an Eduard weekend edition La-7 and was pleased with the overall result. It is not a fiddly kit to build and other than needing a seat harness, should be enough to satisfy most modelers. Well worth picking up if you want the three gun version. Photo of the Eduard boxing below.