Amodel 1/72 Yakovlev Yak-17

AMODEL 1:72 YAKOVLEV YAK-17

Reviewer: Paul Wherran (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: January 2008

Aircraft History:

Based on the earlier Yak-15, the Yak-17 was an early Soviet jet fighter that had the distinctive design of many Soviet jets of that era. A large nose intake that extended into the engine, which occupied the forward section of the fuselage and an exhaust coming out from the belly of the aircraft underneath the mid fuselage cockpit.

The Kit:

Molded in the now renowned light blue-grey plastic this Amodel kit won’t surprise those who have built these kits before. There are 55 soft limited run parts and a single clear part. There are large sprue gates to deal with along with some mold imperfections and a fair amount of flash or join lines that need removal. Surface detail is a bit rough but again fairly standard for Amodel kits with engraved panel lines and control surfaces. I have read elsewhere that this kit is the Amodel Yak-15 kit with the fuselage sprue being different.

Instructions:

These are standard Amodel booklet form with adequate paint information and a limited assembly exploded view diagram that requires a bit of interpretation for some of the construction.

Construction:

The cockpit is reasonably well detailed with rudder pedals, instrument panel, control column, side panels, seat and seat belts supplied. These are of course a little crude because of limited run technology and are also challenging to fit inside the fuselage half. It pays to do some test fitting and the appropriate trimming to make sure the fuselage halves will close afterward. As this is also sub-assembled on top of the nosewheel and engine area it makes it even more of a challenge. Not surprisingly a fair bit of time was spent here tweaking and so forth to get it all to fit nicely.

Problematic to say the least was getting the fuselage halves together and cramming a decent amount of weight in the nose area to prevent a tail sitter while also observing the fact that the front area houses the nose wheel. A fair bit of sanding and filling was needed to smooth out all the joints afterward. Naturally as with most Amodel kits there are also no locating pins to aid in the assembly.

The wings are split into upper and lower halves and don’t fit together all that well. They are even a poorer fit to the fuselage but again some work and patience will eventually achieve a pretty good result, aided by sanding and filling afterward. The flaps are separate which enables one to have them lowered.

The undercarriage is pretty basic and is tempered by a challenging fit of the undercarriage doors. After various test fits and a bit of trimming, the doors will fit in quite well. The canopy is nice and clear but needs some careful preparation (ie: sanding along the bottom) to achieve a reasonable fit. The antennae and masts need very careful removal from the sprue and some creative carving so they can be thinner and look more appropriate. I also used super glue for these.

Colour Schemes:

You have the choice of building either a Polish, Czech or of course a Soviet Yak-17 from the kit all in the standard overall medium or light grey scheme. I stayed with the boring group and picked the Soviet example, painting it in Humbrol’s Medium Sea Grey.

Decals:

The decal sheet is small with only the unit numbers and roundels as the primary options to use. They are reasonable in register but seem to have an excessive amount of carrier film, which was easily overcome by cutting them out very carefully. In spite of this the decals applied very well to the model’s surface and conformed without any hiccups whatsoever. The silvering effect disappeared under a decent coat of Klear.

Accuracy:

Dimensionally this aircraft is pretty accurate when compared to the measurements provided on the Amodel instruction sheet, virtually spot on. I am not a rivet counter so I won’t give you a full run down on everything else but compared to grainy photos and a few artist impression drawings, the model captures the look of the Yak-17 quite well.

Overall Recommendation:

Don’t expect a weekend project here, or something that will go together well without at least some intermediate modelling experience. It is a bit of challenging build, requires a bit of patience, lots of test fitting and clean up of some fairly crude parts. But having said that, if you do like these sorts of kits and have the skills to put them together, then I can highly recommend this one.

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