KP/Kopro 1/72 Yak-23 "Flora"

KP/KOPRO 1:72 YAKOVLEV YAK-23 "FLORA"
'INBOX Review'

Reviewer: Kevan Vogler (rec.models.scale)

The immediate post war years, like the interwar years were a particularly active time in the development of aviation design. Just as the interwar years saw the development and eventual practical application of such groundbreaking concepts as the monoplane, all metal construction and the supercharged piston engine; the late 40s and early 50s were about refined aerodynamics such as the swept wing, and of course, development and practical application of the jet engine.

The Yakovlev 23 (“Flora” by NATO reporting code) is one of those aircraft that unless you are a fan of early post war aircraft or Russian build aircraft, you may know little to nothing about. It is largely overshadowed by better known jets such as the MiG-15.

The Yak-23 was the most refined development of a design that stemmed from the early post war Yak-15. The Yak-15 simply added a jet engine, to a fuselage that may well have been nothing more than a somewhat re-drawn WWII Yakovlev fighter; it had a tail dragger undercarriage design. Next was the Yak-17, the most obvious change was the transition from a tail dragger to a tricycle landing gear arrangement, albeit in a very crude fashion; the nose gear was housed in an obvious blister just aft of the nose intake and looked like a bolted on afterthought, perhaps it was. The Yak-23 incorporated an actual nose gear well into the design so that everything was flush to the fuselage outline when the gears were retracted.

From the Yak-15 to 23 there were subtle refinements to fuselage and wing design, none of it was particularly radical, the wings and tail surfaces remained unswept and despite having a jet engine, in design it had more in common with WWII aircraft and quickly became obsolete. According to the brief history of the type in the kit instructions, the last Czech air force Yak-23s were retired between 1955 and 1956

General impressions of the kit:

This little kit is old, let there be no secret about that. While Kopro has been reissuing many of its kits in recent years, most of them have remained unchanged since they were introduced back in the 70s, or sometimes even earlier. If there is at all one big advantage to a reissued Kopro kit over the earlier issues, its that the reissues are getting very nice new decals by Propagteam. My kit is a reissue, so I’ve got the Propagteam decals, but I’ve seen the old issue and the decals were atrocious, terrible register and colour density was very inconsistent.

The kit consists of 34 parts, including a two piece clear stand for in flight display. For its age, the moldings have held up well. There’s only a bit of flash here and there. The panel lines are raised, I’ve not seen a Yak-23 close up so I don’t know if they overlapped the panels or butt joined them in construction, so raised panel lines may still be more appropriate if overlapping was the case.

The parts breakdown is logical and easy enough to follow. The instructions have three exploded diagrams for constructions steps, there’s no lack of clarity about what should go where. There’s no parts numbers on the sprues, but the instructions do feature sprue maps with part numbers noted on them.

Accuracy:

Before I say anything on this aspect of the kit, one must understand and be able to accept a few key truths about the kit, the company who made it and the time frame it was originally issued in.

Kopro is not just a company of the current Czech Republic, but also one of the former Czechoslovakia, as such it was subject to the Socialist regime at the time. This kit and many of the other kits in Kopro’s range were designed and initially issued under that regime.

I’ve been living and working in the Czech Republic for a little over a year and have had several opportunities to speak to people who are old enough to remember very clearly living and working under Socialism. All of them, without exception, have told me there was absolutely no reward or incentive for “Going that extra mile” or “Giving 110%” at work, so nobody did. In my observations of Czech people since I’ve been here, they are quite accustomed to accepting a bare minimum package and doing some work on their own to get exactly what they want from it.

This kit and many others in Kopro’s range are testament to the philosophies in place at the time of their initial production. If you purchase a Kopro kit, please bear these facts in mind before you get on the warpath to rivet counting or other such criticisms.

That said, Kopro kits do have a reputation of having some of the most accurate outlines of Russian and other Socialist built aircraft in 1/72 on the market. Many modelers I’ve spoken with say that despite its age, Kopro’s 1/72 MiG-21 MF kit is still the most accurately shaped late model MiG-21 kit going.

I’ve not held my Yak –23 up against any technical drawings or otherwise held its scale dimensions in close scrutiny against the actual thing, but comparing it to pictures I’ve found on the internet of the real thing, this little kit should have no problems capturing the look of the real plane with minimal difficulty.

The panel lines all seem to be placed correctly compared to what I can see on pictures of the real aircraft.

The cockpit is Spartan, but the cockpits of many early jets were. You get a fair representation of a seat, rear bulkhead, cockpit tub, stick and instrument console. The instrument console and cockpit tub sides have some raised detail that can be picked out with a bit of dry brushing. My only real gripe with accuracy in this kit lies in the cockpit, or better to say, the spatial relationships of items in it; if you build it straight from the box, it will require a pilot with insanely long legs to fly it judging by the distance between the seat, stick and instrument console.

For the scale, the landing gear components are quite well done and should need only a bit of cleaning up with a file to get them to them to look their part on the finished kit. There is little detail or depth in the gear wells, but that is typical of any kit this size from this era, Eastern or Western made.

The nose intake is supplied as a separate part from the fuselage. On the box top illustration and in photos I’ve seen of the real plane, there is a very obvious landing light housing in the intake splitter that is not represented in any way in the kit part. In fairness, this inaccuracy could simply be evidence of the limitations of plastic molding technology of the time. The intake part is the outer lip, splitter and a short section of trunking all in one. It would take a significant amount of plastic surgery to incorporate that landing light. I’ve seen plenty of pictures of Yak-23s with intake plugs in place. The plug is quite basic and would require much less work than trying to represent that light. I’m definitely making a plug for mine when I start building it.

The kit also has optional wing tip fuel tanks and they may well be another victim of molding limitations, a lot of plastic was involved in such small parts and there are a fair number of distortions and sink areas evident on them. However, as these are an option, you are quite free to leave them off.

The canopy is a real downside to this kit, its clear, but distorted, particularly near its back edge. Additionally the framing is not very distinct. I’m not aware of any aftermarket canopy replacements for this kit at this time. The canopy, as is, may be useful for hiding some of the cockpit woes. If, however, you want to correct the cockpit, you may want to use the canopy to make a master for a heat formed replacement of your own making.

Fit issues:

I’ve done a bit of cursory parts clean up and dry fitting and I can’t see too much in the way of parts fit issues, though you will be better to sand off the alignment pins on the fuselage halves and use eye judgment to bring the halves together.

The biggest issue I can see in fit is the wings and horizontal tail parts to the fuselage. The wing root area on the wing parts is a bit indistinct and leaves some small gaps where it joins to the fuselage. As there is a drawing in the instructions showing a head on view of the aircraft with an indication of proper dihedral, I’m tempted to simply cut the wing and tail mounting stubs off, come up with a jig for proper dihedral and butt join them to the fuselage with CA glue.

Painting and decals:

The painting instructions are a bit vague in this kit, there are no call outs for paints from a specific range and the actual paining instructions are limited to a small block of text under a series of three view decal placement drawings of the individual aircraft options in the kit.

The painting is very simple: with the exception of the nose gun blast plates and undersurface of the tail boom aft of the jet exhaust, all of which were stainless steel; the exterior was all duralumin, at this scale you can use plain old aluminum coloured paint for that and nobody will know the difference.

The landing gear legs and bays along with the cockpit are quoted to be “medium grey”. On the box art, the wheel hubs have a green colour, as this seems typical of all post war Russian built aircraft, I won’t argue with it.

The decals cover two Czech air force examples, a Polish air force example and a civil registered Polish example that was used by the Polish air institute to set a time to altitude record back in the 50s. The decal instructions are easy enough to follow with the provided placement diagrams.

Recommendations:

This little kit appears to have something for every level of modeler:

For the beginner, it should not be a terribly overwhelming kit and can be had for a modest amount of money. The simple paint schemes and decaling make it ideal for this level of modeling. It should also be well suited to a small rainy day or weekend project.

For the intermediate modeler, this kit should give you good opportunities to learn the finer points of parts clean up and dealing with imperfect fit issues as well as basic scratch building such as the aforementioned intake plug.

For the advanced modeler, if you’re looking for a small, out of the box project to get you out of the rut that more detailed modeling projects can often put you in, you may want to give this one a try.

If you absolutely must have a Yak-23 in your collection, I’m not aware of any other kit of one in injection form in 1/72 or otherwise.

If you can accept this kit for its age and be mindful the social and political environment that was in place in its country of origin at the time of its initial issue, I can’t imagine that you’d have any problem seeing it through to a completed build. I’m very much looking forward to starting mine.

Additional note:

If you are a fan of early postwar jets and their evolution, there is a 1/72 Yak-15 out there by Amodel and a 1/72 Yak-17 by Special Hobby or one of its related banners.

So if you have the desire for some sort of flight line diorama showing the evolution of Yak-15 to 23 in 1/72, those two kits and this one will help you do it.

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