Saratov Aviation Plant

The standard display stand of Plasticart. I will use it to test for compatibility with my standard set of Revell glues and enamel paints.

Revell Contacta seems to work fine, as does Contacta Liquid.

The plastic is quite brittle. This crack appeared just from handling the two parts.

Maybe a bit of liquid glue can stabilize the situation.

Simple paint compatibility test with Tamiya Dark Iron XF-84 (top left), Humbrol Silver Metallic 11 (top right), Revell Aluminium 99 (bottom left) and Revell Black 8 (centre). They all adhere well, though with quite different drying times.

Revell 52 Blue RAL5005 for the engine nacelles.

I decided to first attach the wings and join the fuselage later.

The connection on the wings root is not perfect, but I will keep it that way.

Finally joined the fuselage.

And cockpit inserted. There was a milimetre wide gap between the cockpit and the roof that needed filling.

Antennas and pitot tubes installed.

That's really all there is to details.

Ready for painting.

The famous Plasticart giant rivets.

First layers of paint done. More to follow.

Painting almost done. The starboard wing needs a final layer but first port has to fully dry. After that we can go for details.

Still not sure what to paint the stand. Silver (Humbrol 11 enamel) looks good for now.

Well, that was unexpected, masking tape ripped off some paint. The blue (Revell 52 enamel) does not seem to adhere as well as I thought.

Fixed with more paint.

Main paint job finally finished, now it's time for...

...some details

I decided to try Vallejo Model Air Chrome 71.064 for the leading edges of the wings. Looks pretty good.

Finally decals.

The decal for the cockpit window does not fit, not even if applied in several parts.

So, painted on it is.

Almost all the decals done, all that's left is...

... the thin blue line around the cockpit. It will have to be applied part by part.

All decals applied, final details painted on, all that's left is to attach the engines.

All the paints I ended up using. It's a bit more than planned.

And finished. Let's have a walk around...

The CCCP-19661 had at least two paint schemes, one in which the vertical stabilizer and central engine duckt was completely blue. That was how she was presented at Le Bourget in 1967, and which is shown on the boxart and called for in the instructions and original decals...

...and a later one which is similar to the standard Aeroflot livree of the time. This is the one I went for and bought extra decals for.

The production type Aeroflot Yak-40 had a white stripe along the engine nacelle, the prototype did not.

At the right angle one can look through the central engine exhaust and have a peek around the insides of her. There is not much to see however, except the cockpit and passenger windows and the central air intake.

The writing at the front is a list of mostly European, Middle Eastern and Asian capitals and major cities. They are Moscow, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, Bucharest, Sofia, Budapest, Prague, Belgrade, Turin, Vienna, Stockholm, Berlin, Warsaw, Tokyo, Tehran, Damascus, Cairo, Kabul, Kuwait City, Rawalpindi, Delhi, Kathmandu and Rangoon. I don't know about the significance of these places, perhaps they were visited by this airplane?

Comments

10 21 August 2020, 16:25

Rando Dude
A vintage kit I acquired from eBay. I used to build Plasticart kits as a kid but I never had this particular one. I will not do any major modifications to it (there is no wheel well for the main landing gear for example) but will use Revaro RG-B034 decal sheet, depicting the prototype version of this aircraft. Paints will be mostly Revell enamels with 04 White RAL 9010 as primary colour, 52 Blue RAL 5005 for the engine nacelles, 08 Black RAL 9011 and 99 Aluminium for the landing gears, as well as 31 Fiery Red RAL 3000, Humbrol 011 Silver and Tamiya XF-84 Dark Iron for additional details.

23 August 2020, 13:02