I just finished this one yesterday and boy was it a project. It is a 1/48 SMER. The directions are a little sketchy, but manageable. The paint job was tough - silly putty is a god send! The decals for this particular plane are not available, so I had to make them myself. The 3020 was actually stenciled on - I cut the stencil and air brushed them on. I really like the effect. Other than that, the ac was built from the box. Let me know what you think!
Drew
Very good. One question though. Shouldn’t the gear actuators be silver, not red?
Oddly enough, I used some pics from a walkaround on the web (link below) that showed them as being red. I thought it was a little strange, but I just painted it as I saw it. Could there be a reason that it is red in the museum but should actually be bare metal?
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/AWA1/001-100/walk013_Mig17/images%20Jeff%
If it had a down lock safety strut installed, then yes it would be red. I think in this case with the model, it doesn’t have the safety strut so it should have been silver.
Drew, looks great. Post more photos. One picture is just a tease!!
Rich
I can’t get the link. When I click on it I get the message, “Page cannot be found”.
Thanks, Rich. Here are a few more…
I got the same thing, Berny - go to www.Aircraftresourcecenter.com and go on a walkaround of the jets. The MiG-17F walkaround has some good pics of this plane. Thanks for your input.
Very nice! I like the paint job.
You actually built the SMER/OEZ kit? Geez, brave soul…
Snazzy paint job too. How was it as regards fit and all that kinda stuff?
Fade to Black…
I agree with berny13. It does appear that those are mechanical lockouts to prevent retraction of the gear and speedbrakes (pictured on ARC). They should be chrome silver.
Darren
Excellent work! One question- How did you mask for the camo scheme?
Hey Drew,
Why not post that photo of the MiG all decked out in silly putty, it may prove interesting to allotta these guys!
Fade to Black…
The SMER kit wasn’t really that bad - the only fit problem I had was getting the fuselage halves to come together with the cockpit tub in place. This seems to be the case with a lot of models, though. A little trimming did the trick.
As for the paint job - I did the dark green first, masked with silly putty, and shot the lighter color. Work fast with silly putty, though - it tends to run a little!
Here’s the putty pic…
I did a partial a/c with silly putty before… but that just looks… odd… “My airplane’s under attack by giant worms!” or something. :0
Came out really ncie, though.
Is this the guy that was shot down by Duke Cunningham and his rio, Willy Driscoll? It seems like I remember that being a Col. Tomb. He couldn’t cope with the rolling scissors if I remember right. Few can actually, rolling scissors is hard.
madda
When I first read this thread I thought of mentioning this, but I felt bad enough about picking on the red struts. BTW…the model is outstanding, I forgot to state that first off in my previous post, sorry.
Anyhow, On May 10, 1972 Randy “Duke” Cunningham and Willie “Irish” Driscoll were credited with 3 kills that day before being shot down. One of those mistakenly reported as Col. Tombs by the media. Documents years later were found to show that it was not Col. Tombs aircraft. None the less, the misidentified pilot was of great skill and presented them their most challenging dogfight of the war.
I was lucky enough to literally bump in to Mr. Cunningham last year in Manassas, VA. while at work at the airport. He had landed there and the aircraft was parked at our FBO. He was gracious enough to answer some of my questions. We had a very nice conversation, he’s an extremely nice person. I have yet to meet a pilot that doesn’t like to tell old war stories.
Darren
Did Duke use his patented phrase “Gomer Goggles” in that conversation? lol [:p]
Fade to Black…
I recall reading that not only was that Mig-17 not flown by Col. Tomb, but that Col. Tomb never existed at all.
Jim
Very nice model. If you ever had any doubts when you were doing all the silly putty work they were unnecessary, it paid off!
An idea…Maybe the museum A/C has the bare metal painted red as a means of prservation.