Eduard 1/72 MiG-15 bis (Weekend Edition)

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (Russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-15; NATO reporting name: "Fagot") is a jet fighter aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB for the Soviet Union. The MiG-15 was one of the first successful swept-wing jet fighters, and achieved fame in the skies over Korea, where early in the war, it outclassed all straight-winged enemy fighters in most applications. It also outclassed every other contemporary Soviet jet fighter design, including several which met all requirements for production, but were either never put into series production, or produced in very small numbers.

Later, the MiG-15 would also serve as a starting point for the development of the more advanced MiG-17. The MiG-15 is believed to have been one of the most widely produced jet aircraft ever made, in excess of 12,000 were manufactured. Licensed foreign production may have raised the production total to over 18,000. The MiG-15 is often mentioned along with the North American F-86 Sabre as among the best fighter aircraft of the Korean War and in comparison with fighters of other eras. Today, thanks to its simplicity and robust design, the MiG-15 or its derivatives are popular jet warbirds.

As most of you may know, I'm not a big fan of Eduard's Profipak kits. They are fine if you have no aftermarket in your stash, but I do and I'm also cheap. That is why if you look at my stash of unbuild Eduard kits, nearly all of them are Weekend Editions.

To be honest, when I first saw pictures of this kit being built on the Forum, I wanted nothing to do with it. The kit had some poorly shaped parts and there were reports of difficulties getting the bits to properly fit. I then read on the Eduard site that they had re-tooled some parts for better fit and that the issues were things of the past. They offered to exchange the 'bad' sprues for good ones (though the buyer would have to pay postage to the Czech Republic to send back the sprues). Eduard promised that all later boxings would have the good bits. And so that is true. The 'bad' sprues do not have three bulges on the tree for B and C. This one does.

You can see that Eduard puts all their eggs in one basket and I'm assuming the 'do not use' bits are for the MiG-15 sans suffix. These bits include one lower wing, lower forward fuselage, tailpipe and some other bits that look like they are for the Lim-2.

The molding on the parts is up to Eduard's usual standard with nicely engraved panel lines and none of the mass of rivets that some other kits provide. The cockpit is quite well done with a two-piece seat control stick and nicely done side panels. Decals are used for instruments, which is fine in this scale. The cockpit side panels also double as the inner walls of the split intake. A nose gear well attaches to the front. This is little room for weight and you will need it as this will be a tail sitter. The instructions show some going above the nose gear and some in the hollow behind the gear. One partially builds the nose gear while putting together the cockpit assembly.

There is a separate nose ring with splitter and the cannons fit into hollows in the lower fuselage. There is a separate rudder that gets trapped between the fuselage halves. Ailerons are molded into the upper wing halves to provide a sharp trailing edge. Tail planes are single piece and tab into holes in the fin. The landing gear is well done with separate hubs for the main wheels. There are two styles to choose from with no indication of which is appropriate for the markings scheme. Main gear wells have nice detail and there are lots of well done gear doors, retraction struts and other bits to make the gear look busy.

There is a separate windscreen and canopy so you can pose the canopy open if you wish. Two styles of drop tank are provided, one set having a much longer pylon attachment point, but are otherwise identical. You will need to open these up if you wish to add pylons. Not shown but included in the kit are the smaller, form fitting wing tanks, which are apparently not used on this one.

Instructions are well done with Gunze color information. The decals look like they have two sets of markings, but actually, the North Korean ones go on first, followed by the Soviet ones. The North Korean markings are supposed to have been scrubbed off leavingonly a faint outline. How you are to duplicate that on a bare aluminum plane is beyond me, but there it is. Most of us who use the kit markings will use one or the other. The black wing walk areas will need to be painted on. Decals are very nicely one. A nice addition to this kit is a set of seat harness decals and what looks like a yellow bra. These feel very thick and may be ALPS printed or perhaps embossed. There seems to be a solid carrier film over the sheet. There is no mention of them in the instructions or on the box. 

So there you have it. Now one is probably wondering how this stacks up against the recent Airfix kit. Well, it is a case of apples vs oranges. The Airfix kit is very well done, not very fiddly and not very expensive. Even the 'el cheapo' Eduard version is twice as expensive, but it seems to have more detail and certainly more parts. I am sure that both will provide very nice models with the Eduard one being a bit nicer due to all the detail it provides.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG-15

July 2014 

Thanks to me for picking this one up.

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