MiG-23 MF/UB 'Flogger' - Double Build - Kovozávody Prostějov
That will be two boxes less in the closet. Wife approves.
Fret 1 is identical in both kits.
So is fret 2. The wings can be installed in any position, but has no swing mechanism. Only external fuel tanks are provided, no missiles. But I have never seen a photo of a Hungarian MiG-23 carrying a single missile, so I won't have to rummage in the spares box.
The required parts for the twin seater version are all found on Fret 3. This is only available in the box for the twin seater of course.
The two part ejection seats are grossly simplified but are reasonable on the trainer version. No harnesses are provided, only decals. I could have bought a resin replacement for the seats, but my experience is that those will not fit into the cockpit tub and it actually doesn't really matter if the canopy is displayed in closed position, which I intend to do this time.
The seat on the single-seater is on the other hand completely ruined by a huge ejection pin marking in the very center of the seat, making it more or less unusable. The molded-on harness furthermore looks like ... well, like molten plastic. Fortunately I have a spare seat from a KP MiG-21 kit that is 100% identical to the ones provided for the twin seater, so I will use that one.
The single seater has a very strange indentation on its dashboard shroud. I don't have the slightest clue what this is supposed to be, but there is nothing like this on the real aircraft, so it definitely needs to be repaired. And it is not just a glitch on my kit, but all KP MiG-23's have these.
Nose section insides are primed and then sprayed Soviet turquoise green (Ammo Mig 223). As you can see, I also started adding the nose gear bay part as it will provide the base for the cockpit tub. I remember that this part needs to be placed with great care for the cockpit tub to fit perfectly.
The Eduard PE instrument panel that I intend to use (on the top right, the original plastic part is on the left) does not quite fit in under the dashboard shroud. I needed to gouge out the inside of the shroud to an inch of its life to make it possible to fit in the instrument panel - and it's still quite a tight squeeze.
The rear bulkhead of the front cockpit of the twin-seater needs to be cut off and replaced with a slightly different part with two openings (for the instructor in the back seat to be able to see forward). It's a simple job with the razor saw, but I cannot see why KP didn't just provide a full replacement cockpit tub.
New bulkhead cemented in place. The molded on detals on the side consoles will be sanded off to be replaced with PE, and some additional scratch built details will be added to the backside.
The build description asks you to cement the two cockpit tubs together, but by doing so, you will end up with teeth gnashing and agony. They should actually be rather far apart. I found that the instructor's cockpit tub for the twin seater needs a piece of sprue cemented underneath the cockpit floor to make everything stay in place.
Cockpit tubs painted, dirtied down and cemented into the right fuselage half, waiting for the ejection seat. This is a bit of a cartoonish simplification of the office of the real MiG-23, but it looks busy enough for this small scale. And since I intend to have the canopies closed on both models (the MiG-23 looks much more awesome with closed canopies), I will get away with it. Now time to do the same for the twin seater!
Both cockpits assembled and painted. The Eduard instrument panels are lovely but slightly. I also needed to tilt the front instrument panel of the twin seater to make it fit under the shroud. Never mind, dry fitting shows that this level of detail is more than adequate once the canopies are in place.
Fuselage halves cemented together - the mating surfaces are slightly rounded so the join lines will needs to be filled and polished a bit, but no major fit issues yet.
Let's start with the rear fuselage! I intend to display one of the models with the wings swept backwards to a 72 degree configuration - this was the way the aircraft were parked. Here is the first pitfall of the build: when swept back, the wing roots are much too thick to fit inside the wing gloves, and if this is not taken care of, the result is a unsightly gap.
Here is the cause of the problem: the metal shell of the real aircraft is much too thin to be possible to represent in plastic in 1:72 scale. When scaled down, things no longer fit together.
Fortunately the solution is really easy - you need to cut the inner tip of the wing that goes inside the wing glove into a wedge shape. In the photo below, the right wing is done, the left still needs to be fixed.
As you see, the wing now fits flawlessly into the glove! Great success!
Here is the second caveat: the orientation of the wings (top and bottom side) is incorrectly depicted in the assembly illustrations! The carefully drawn panel lines in the illustrations are actually on the underside of the wing; the panel lines are completely different on the upper side. If you follow the instructions, the aircraft will look weird because of the slight camber of the wings!
Wings cemented in 72 degree parking position. Correct side up!
The second aircraft will have its wings in the 16 degree forward position, intended for take-off, landing and slow flight. The Floggers were almost never parked this way unless for maintenance, but I thought it would look cool to have the two models in different configurations. Unfortunately the kit does not have parts for the pneumatic mechanism that seals the wing-fuselage join, so I at least needed to add some styrene strips on the inside to prevent see-through.
The bottom and top fuselage joined, sandwiching the wings. You need to cement section by section, inch by inch, holding the parts with firm pressure and allowing the cement to dry before continuing to the next section. If you try to cement all in one go, you will end up with nasty steps that will require you to sand off all the fine detail. As you may notice, I also used my Dremel to grind off the back spine on one of the assemblies to allow the replacement back for the twin seater trainer to fit.
Front and back fuselage assemblies joined. You need to be extremely precise with the straight alignment of the nose, or you will end up with serious fit issues with the jet intakes later! I also added the gun sights, but had to modify them quite heavily to make them fit under the windscreen.
The twin seater has a different dorsal hump (added fuel tank) that needs to be cemented on top of the existing molded one. It is not stated in the instructions, but if you don't grind off the rear half of the original one (as I did before), the new one will not fit.
The vertical fin is added. The fit is a quite poor with some nasty gaps that need to be taken care of. I am using my favorite technique of dissolving Tamiya White Putty in Mr, Color Leveling Thinner, applying it with a wooden stick and then wiping off the excess with a cotton bud moisted with Leveling Thinner in one single swipe. The putty will then only fill the gap and no sanding is required. Repeat if necessary.
The auxiliary intakes ("puffer doors") on the aircraft are just scribed rectangles (as seen in the topmost part), but this is a very simple thing to fix. Grind down the inside of the intakes with the Dremel tool to a reasonable thickness, and then use a sharp modeling knife to cut open the two rectangles along the scribed lines.
Once done, I cemented two pieces of styrene at an angle to cover the openings. I also added the two intake separator strakes from strips of Evergreen styrene. These details are only visible from the outside, so they don't have to be perfect. One down in half an hour of work - now let's make three more!
Intake assemblies attached to the fuselage. Just so that future builders of this kit know, this area is by far the worst section of the model. It all fits surprisingly poorly, and no matter how careful I've been with the assembly, gaps, steps and significant asymmetries are unavoidable. The gaps need to be filled and then sanded heaviliy into alignment, thereby losing all the fine surface detail around the intakes.
Here I started to add the pylons. The UB-version should have the old type of pylons added (like in this photo), not the newer ones for the MF version. Fortunately they are all provided in the kit, you just need to do your homework and pick the correct ones instead of following the instructions. No missiles are provided, but I have yet to see a picture of a Hungarian MiG-23 carrying anything but drop tanks.
Adding the complex landing gears, trying to ensure that the model sits straight and with the correct stance. I am using superglue to strengthen the joins.
Stabilators and the fixed parts of the rear ventral fin added. There are no locating markings at all, so again, you need to use your references. You may notice that I moved the wing glove pylon backward a bit from the previous photos. The two holes in the middle of the fuselage is for the 800 liter drop tank that I will add later.
I didn't want to add a drop tank to the single seater, so I just cut off the pylon part from the drop tank part and used it as such, as no centerline pylon is provided in the kit - which it should, as it is an integral part of the actual aircraft.
Gun barrels added from 0.8 mm aluminium tubes. It is not really what the real thing looks like, but is far better than the plastic lumps provided in the kit.
Air brakes added in open position for the twin seater. I wish I had done that for the single-seater too, the fit of the air brakes in closed state is not the best... And, yes, the two prominent air scoops are drilled out and cemented in place,
Adding 5-6 non-lead fishing weights into the nose cones. The twin seater with its forward swept wings actually doesn’t need any nose weight at all to stay on its wheels, but I added some anyway for good measure.
Nose cone added and slightly sanded in alignment.
Cockpit finished and windshield and canopies are cemented on, using careful applications of Tamiya Extra Thin cement making sure not to have any cement seep up onto the glass parts, The transparencies really fit flawlessly.
Brass pitot tube from Master Model superglued into a drilled hole in the nose cone. It is a small but significant improvement over the provided plastic detail. Too bad that the rather prominent backup pitot tube just ahead of the windshield is missing from the KP kit (it used to be there in the ARTS kit), I might try to fabricate something reasonable, but only after painting, as otherwise it will just be knocked off a dozen times.
The actual build part is hereby finished - minus the wheels and a few doo-dahs. Next: painting!
All surfaces carefully wiped off with IPA alcohol to remove any kind of grease from handling that might interfere with the paint sticking to the model. It is difficult because of all the tiny details added on this model!
Windshield and canopies masked off using the Peewit masks. These are nearly of the same quality as the Eduard masks and a huge improvement over the KV Models ones I used before on my previous MiG-23 project.
Fade to gray. Badger Stynylrez primer sprayed on using my H&S Evolution airbrush at 25 PSI. The primer was then carefully polished a bit with Mr Hobby polishing mesh sheets to create a smooth base for the actual paint coat.
Finding the right color is extremely difficult with these Hungarian aircraft as the paint shifted and changed very quickly and they look completely different on every photo you can find online. For the single seater wearing the standard three-tone Hungarian camo, I want to have a heavily faded appearance at the end of its life span. I believe that it can be accomplished with a mix of XF-71 Cockpit Green, some XF-8 Blue and a little white for the green areas, and XF-59 Desert Yellow mixed with some XF-57 Buff and a few drops of XF-64 Red Brown for the brown areas. The bottom side is XF-23 Light Blue with a bit of white mixed in.
Comments
57 1 May, 07:00
MariusAnd I thought starting my third such kit from KP/RV Aircraft is self torture. The truth is, once you had finished one of them in the past, the frustration decreases with each new one.
Any idea how you will treat the taxiing lights?
5 May, 07:34
Thomas KolbMarius, I honestly don't think this kit is so terrible. There are some fit issues for sure, but I have built much worse kits. I constantly keep reminding myself that I only do this for relaxation and fun, and not for a competition or as a profession.
Are you referring to the swiveling landing lights underneath the intakes?
5 May, 07:50
MariusThomas, I share your opinion about the kit and hobby too actually. The kit is dreadful in a few areas, but overall more than decent. I finished two of these already and I must say, they really stand out my collection, despite the kit's reputation.
Yes, I was refering to those lights. If I remember it correctly, there are some transparent parts included in the kit, but the intakes are completely flat, where the lights should go. I made the mistake to install those lights in the closed position, instead of the more interesting setup, when they are deployed downwards. In any case, it's just a heads up, in case you might want to add some extra detailing.
5 May, 08:34
Thomas KolbYes, I see your point regarding those lights, but I will probably just stick to my usual middle road - easy to accomplish and still produces a cool result. 🙂
5 May, 14:44
Martin von Schreckensteinhaha, love the topic and kit selection. you are definitely more meticulous than I was 🙂
7 May, 21:23
Thomas KolbMartin, I saw your MiG-23 project - it is way more ambitious than mine! I am not so meticulous, just very, very slow, only having an hour or two to spend here and there.
8 May, 07:53
Thomas KolbA bit of a setback here. I just realized that I had foolishly been following the assembly drawings and thus ended up with the wings upside down. Bottom side up and vice versa. It may not be something that is easily noticeable, but knowing myself, I would never be able to unsee it now. So I am backtracking my steps and need to change the way the wings are facing without ruining the fuselage. Mamma mia, what a noob mistake-a to make-a.
8 May, 10:39
Łukasz GlińskiGreat you found it out before it was too late. I see we used to watch the same TV series 😄
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8 May, 10:44
S MI'm in! I'm also working on KP's MiG-23 and had the same issues with fitting and wings. Damn I didn't notice that the wings are upside down...
24 May, 15:02
Thomas KolbThank you gentlemen for your encouraging words! 🙂 The twin seater assembly is done, and now I need to finish the single seater. I am now thinking about which individual aircraft to represent and which camo to use.
30 May, 12:35
Cristian AHi Thomas, nice progress. I think the Tamiya paints are my favourite so far. They apply well and they don't smell so strongly.
3 June, 14:20
Thomas KolbCristian, yes, they are mine too. They also react superbly well to the Mr Color Leveling thinner and level out to perfection. Too bad that the color range is a bit narrow, you need to mix almost everything.
3 June, 18:30
Cristian AThanks for the tip Thomas, I recently discovered Tamiya paints. The hobby shop seller recommended "Aqueous Hobby Color Thinner" and using that works well also.
4 June, 09:14
