DRAGON 1:72 MIG-15BIS

 

Reviewer: Michael Johnson (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted:  24 January 2004

Dragon 1:72 MiG-15bis

The Aircraft

The spectacular MiG-15 fighter used a combination of Russian ingenuity and "borrowed" advanced European aviation technology to become one of the most famous aircraft designs of its era. Called the "aircraft-soldier" by Russian pilots, the aircraft was exceptionally strong and dependable. The MiG-15 is still respected for its speed, manoeuvrability and firepower; advantages that made it a worthy adversary of the North American F-86 during the Korean War. 

The Mikoyan and Gurevich (MiG) design team utilized captured German technology when developing the layout of the MiG-15. The plane's 35 degree swept wing, fuselage mounted engine and clean lines gave the aircraft exceptional performance. Powered by a unlicensed copy of the famous British Nene centrifugal flow jet engine, the MiG-15 was capable of speeds up to Mach .934. The initial prototype, the I-310, made its first flight in December 1947 and won a fly-off against the Lavochkin La-15. The MiG-15 went into production and entered front line service in 1949. 

Shortly after its introduction the MiG-15 entered combat over Korea. Flown by Russian, North Korean and Chinese pilots, the swept wing MiG fighter terrorized U.S.A.F. B-29 bombers flying strategic bombing missions over North Korean cities. The MiG-15's speed, manoeuvrability, and heavy armament (two 23mm and one 37mm cannon) allowed it brush aside escorting fighters and rip through the B-29 formations. B-29 losses to MiGs reached such high levels that the U.S.A.F. stopped daylight B-29 bombing raids and flew all strikes under the cover of darkness. Although several MiG-15s were brought down by B-29 gunners and other U.N. aircraft, only the North American F-86 Sabre was the MiG-15's equal in combat. The MiG's combat success and its dependability made the plane very popular with Eastern Bloc and Communist nations around the world. Since 1950 roughly 7,500 MiG-15s have been built in Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland and China. In addition to the Korean War, the MiG-15 has been used extensively as an air defense fighter, an air superiority fighter, a ground attack aircraft and reconnaissance fighter in a number of conflicts in the Middle East and the Orient. 

SPECIFICATION AND PRODUCTION INFORMATION 

Preamble

Keen to get a display adversary for my growing Sabre fleet, I purchased the Dragon kit over the elderly Airfix MiG-15 in the hope of more accuracy, detail and less filler. At a later date I realised that I should have done my research more thoroughly. 


© Michael Johnson 2004

The Kit

Comes in a top opening box, with a nice painting of a MiG-15 in-flight. Inside are two light grey sprues with instruction booklet, decal sheet and a two part canopy. The major components shocked me with the amount of recessed rivets covering them. Recessed detail is great to have but the kit detail seemed to have been done by the offspring of the Matchbox mad trencher and Airfix rivet maker. On the whole though, parts were crisp and flash free with only a few sink holes and ejector pin marks marring the under carriage bay doors.

The sliding base of the canopy hood was separate to the clear portion of the canopy. This concerned me somewhat as I have never been able to get a satisfactory join of frame to clear part in kits engineered in this fashion. More on that later!

Two decal options are provided on the small decal sheet. Typical of Dragon decals these were thin and in perfect register.

Construction

Assembly started with the cockpit, which was sparsely detailed with an instrument panel, seat and side consoles. I painted the instrument panel flat black and dry brushed in pale grey to bring out the moulded detail. The cockpit sides were painted in light grey and consoles in flat black with details picked out with a combination of dry brushing and careful painting with various colours.

Once the seat was painted the completed cockpit tub was offered up to a fuselage side and cemented in place along with the vertical intake trunk. Both fuselage halves were taped together while the internals set.

At this stage I assembled the wings, 2 halves per side. With the wings set aside to dry, I cleaned up and painted the undercarriage bay doors, undercarriage legs and wheels.

The remainder of assembly went rapidly downhill from there. Every join needed filler or substantial sanding to achieve a good result, with a lot of that overdone rivet detail being lost.

The worst area of the kit was the nose, with the nose intake being larger than the fuselage it was to join. More sanding and filling needed and more of that detail lost.

The wings are assembled from four parts and are attached into recesses on either side of the fuselage very well indeed with only slight adjustments to either wing needed to achieve the correct dihedral. I used the cotton bud/nail polish remover (acetone type) method to fill slight gaps at each wing root. At least I saved detail at the wing roots! Placement of the underwing fuel tanks needed more filler and sanding, something I was used too by now with this kit.

The under nose cannon and machine gun blister assemblies needed filler to smooth the fuselage joins. I then added the fuselage aerials and tail panes.

The separate windshield was masked carefully and cemented into place with minute drops of model glue. Fit was pretty good and gaps were eliminated with PVA glue wiped away with a moistened mk1 finger. The rear sliding hood was another proposition altogether. The main problem being that the separate lower frame was wider than the clear canopy. As such it had to be forced to the width of the canopy and held until set. This resulted in a less than satisfactory join than subsequent painting only partly hid.

Painting and Decaling

Now that construction was finished I could settle down to painting. I started by priming the airframe with Tamiya primer so to reveal any flaws and to give the Tamiya AS-12 NM a firm base. Once several flaws were fixed, the whole plane was sprayed with two light coats of AS-12 20 minutes apart. At least with the natural metal paint on, it was looking a little better! It was now time for decaling.

The decals performed well but refused to snuggle down over all that detail, even after repeated applications of Aeromaster Sol II. After the recalcitrant decals had dried I applied a light coat of Future with a flat wide brush, to seal them in.


© Michael Johnson 2004

Finishing Touches

The canopy masking was removed revealing a less than perfect sliding canopy, which was glued in a slightly open position with PVA glue. The pre-painted undercarriage was added and the MiG-15 was finished.

Overall

Oh dear, what I thought was going to be a nice little build turned out to be a lot of hard work! 

Certainly accuracy seems a problem as scale plans revealed an incorrect wing shapes and nose issues. I have since found out that the origin of this kit may well have been Italeri. My recommendation would be to source the KP kit, through ebay perhaps.

Those who have read my reviews before know that I am not afraid of opening the Tamiya filler tube and wearing out wet n dry while building a model kit, however I struggled with this kit and as such I hesitate to recommend this kit. It is overpriced and proves that cost does not equal quality.

Still, all said and done, it looks ok next to the Sabre line-up!

References


© Michael Johnson 2004

 

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