1/32 Revell Mig 21BM

Gallery Article by Claus Gustafsen on Jan 8 2010

Silly Week 2010

 

This is my model of the Brasilian Navy Mig 21BM. A lot of people know that the USSR was planning to build a carrier called "Sovjetsky Sojus", and they tasked a couple of companies with producing planes for this ship.

The only one that materialized before the ship was cancelled was the Mig 21 BM. It has folding wings and a tailhook as the most visible changes, but also it had much more corrosion protection and navigation equipment. It's not as easy to follow the Gulf Stream as it is to follow the Volga river after all.

The Soviet Navy never really got the planes in use and they were stored for later. Then when the Brasilian Navy bought the former French Carrier Foch, they needed some planes, and the US and French government were rather slow to allow deals and there would be a slow delivery, when the new Russian government offered a full Airwing of flyable jet to the Brasilian Navy. The Mig 21 BM and the SU 25BM.

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I modelled the Mig 21 BM based on the old Revell kit, it recieved the folding wings and the tailhook , but also a lot of new antennas for the new electronics which includes GPS and naval communications systems. The markings is from FCM and Daco plus the spares box.

The tailHook is actually a Revell Zero landing gear leg modified into the hook, the blisters on the tail is Revell Seafire Ib gun covers. This way a lot of the spares in the box came into use to make the plane look just right, the new smaller but thicker wheel is from a Hasegawa Me 163.... 

For Silly Week I wanted to send one of my "Relaxing projects". I bought this old Revell Mig 21 at a model meeting some time ago, as I don't really do jet normally, I decided that I would turn it into one of my Funnies. I do a lot of conversion on model and try to make them as real as possible, but sometimes I like to relax, and then I do something like this Brasilian Navy Mig 21BM (Big Modification).

Claus Gustafsen

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Photos and text © by Claus Gustafsen