1/48 Academy MiG21-PF

converted to a MiG-21 early PFM (izd.77). 

by Meesha

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There are a few rumors about Academy's 21s in Russia.  From "This kit is all incorrect " to "Hey! This one does at least look more like a 21 and not a Viking or Chinook"...so the Academy kit isn't that bad at all... And around a year ago I bought a Part's photoetch cockpit set and CMK's wheel bays for this model and decided to build a MiG-21 ... as close to a real one as possible, as usual. ;)  I started the project codenamed 21. First of all - the wide fin provided with Academy's PF with a one piece canopy is correct only for one 21's mod - "izdelie 77", or early PFM really ... Most PFMs got the two piece canopy, and the one piece canopy is correct only for the 77 and a large scale license production at India, that doesn't catch my attention for my first 1/48 21. Some sources said that there was less than 200 of the 77s built in the USSR, other sources said that a Gorky's Aircraft Factory built 'em for years, so that is a fact that is very difficult to prove... and because I like a wide fin and one piece canopy, I decided to make such a series, even if there was less than 200 built in all... I have some fotos of it! And I found it the most beautiful 21 of them all! This is where it started, when I ended up (as I thought ) with complication.  So here it goes - build an Academy 21 no matter what it will cost ;)

First thing I did - the engine nozzle and cockpit... Part's photo-etch is done for a fully opened nozzle, I didn't find any photos of planes on the ground... =( But I have no choice - Academy's nozzle isn't any closer to the real one at all, so I did it fully open. I did some rings and the afterburner nozzle's ring from scratch to represent a more or less believable 21 nozzle. I also added an emergency fuel dump tube, that is visible in all 21 photos, and that I never saw on any models at all... It's done from stainless steel tubing and beercan metal.  And this is how the 21's nozzle must look like for me. I painted the usual green antiburn ceramic coating of most 21's engines and burnt metal on the non engine's nozzle's parts.

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A cockpit was made from Part's photoetched kit and is quite close to the real 77's cockpit, just drilled some IO's in the sides and glued some stretched sprue for closer look. I also used the Neomega seat instead of the kit one, that is unusable... and here goes more interesting things after I glued a fuselage parts all together... More work, than You expected =( .. First - wings in the kit are the same as in MF's kit, that is completely wrong... they are the same in geometry, but quite different in panel lines really...the most noticeable thing I didn't fixed at all (I found it from my friends when the model was almost done) - Flap lines are not the same on the top and the bottom of the wings ... they "ate" some flap space on top and they became identical only on the MFs and later models... Academy did 1 wing for all 21s, and that's not correct.  There was also simpler panel lines, that I tried to fix and there are much sharper edges, as well as much sharper fin's edges...I fixed it as much as possible, and I did new aerodynamic fins on the wing from beercan's steel to do them more in scale... I also added some visible aerodynamic things on the wing and static electricity dischargers on the wings, fin and elevators made from stainless steel tubing.... This dischargers are quite off scale (slightly wider), but I have no thinner tubing and only wires without a cone doesn't do the trick in my opinion =(

I could say much more about the landing gear of Academy's 48th 21s.... It looks like the Academy guys made this model just with words "blah-blah here and bloh-bloh there" when they did the 21's landing gear... =( The only thing I used from the Academy when I built legs for my bird - main hydrocylinder body... but I'd better do it from scratch for best result.... This "blah-blah" is almost unusable =( I also used CMK for gear bays, but wouldn't recommend it "alone" for hardcore 21's fans... It has a very good photoetch wing and nose bay doors, but the fuselage bay doors are made from Academy's and are incorrect... As My friend - a Military Aerbatic Team's pilot said when first tried to put real wheels in that bays -- "They are small for those wheels!"...the Aires bays look much more correct, but they have no wing bays or any doors ... Both of them have no main gear fuselage doors, that are completely incorrect in the kit... I tried to correct 'em, but... maybe next time I'll do it better (I'm planning some Egyptian MF later... I like to dive at the Red Sea ;)) Later Belorussia's company did very good spinable wheels with good rubber for 21, that I bought them as soon as I found 'em, and most of the gear was made from scratch with stainless wires for construction hardness and with some tubing to correctly represent open hydraulic tubing of real AC (I do it usually at all gears really). I also did some correcting of the panel lines all around a plane, made stainless steel antenna, emergency PVD (Academy's one represent later ones again), very end of the radar cone (really stainless on real AC) and so on... You really can find out all mods on this photographs.

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My model was painted with Tamiya enamels, the Formation number and stars were painted with acrylic with handmade masks (I really have a lot of experience with working some airbrush tricks - I'm an artist).  Stencils were made with the not yet released NeoMega 21's stencil decal, that they even didn't provide instruction, so it was a great pain in the ......... to land 'em on the plane correctly......few months of research real AC photographs and real instructions gave some help. There are some things about this model that still kill me - like oversized canopy and gargrot. I didn't correct it, so it does sometimes look more like a big headed Su 22 or something... (Hey Academy !!! It's a 21 at all, not a 22 ... and MiG, not Sukhoi!!!). But I hope that for casual model watchers that are visiting My apartment it's not so noticeable as for me ;))

Thanx to all my friends in building this model and a VERY BIG THANKS for Yuri Taranov and Anatoly Velichko (aka Velan) for providing me with useful info about izd.77.  And all that helluva details about izd.77 and 21 series at all.... as well as thanx to Efim Gordons book - best info about all 21s and the most believable blueprints of all steps in 21's development... and all net resources and Squadron's early MiG-21's walkaround...

PS: I had great fun doing this project, even with it's faults... but what is our hobby going for? To make a model, that is as close to real one, as possible... isn't that fun? I hope it is... even with 22's canopy =))

Meesha

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Photos and text © by Meesha