Bilek 1/72 Antonov An-2 Colt

BILEK 1:72 ANTONOV AN-2 COLT

Reviewer: Brian Manning (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 14 February 2003

Aircraft History:

The AN-2 first flew in August 1947 as the SKh-1 (rural economy-1). This large biplane was of mixed construction, and though regarded in the West as an anachronism even at that time, has emerged as one of the truly great aircraft of all time. Some 5,000 were built in the former USSR before production was switched in 1960 to Poland, where more than 11,200 more An-2's were built under licence. The type is also made in China and designated the Yunshuji-5.

The NATO reporting name for the AN-2 is "Colt" and the type has what most consider to be pedestrian flight performance, but possesses remarkable ruggedness and adaptability. The Colt has been used by a host of civil and air force operators alike in a wide number of varying roles and applications. Some of the principal versions include a civil/ski transport, utility transport, passenger airliner, air ambulance, agricultural plane, military transport, firebomber, seaplane (with many roles already mentioned), ski-plane (with many roles already mentioned), and parachute trainer to name a few.

The Kit:

The kit comes in the now familiar Bilek packaging with a box style opening containing nearly 100 parts of which a dozen are clear. The plastic parts are molded in light grey with engraved panel lines and nicely rendered fabric sections. The surface detail is certainly not overdone and would be described as reasonable in this scale. I am not sure if the parts are limited run, not having built a Bilek kit before but they do have a mainstream look and feel to them, even though there is a bit of flash encumbering some of the parts (this kit to my knowledge is a mainstream style of long-run kit - Ed).

Instructions:

These come on four separate sheets and are not really in a booklet style, as each sheet is able to be a standalone for the information it is providing. You will find a brief overview of the history of the aircraft in a few different languages and a parts map on one. The ten stage construction process in fairly clear and straight forward exploded view diagrams comes on another sheet, and little is left open to misinterpretation. The final two sheets provide four-view diagrams for each of the five color options that can be built out of the box. The instructions also provide dimensions for rigging wire and line drawings of areas such as the aerial mast to enable precise angles to be simulated. Painting information is provided through the instructions with colours quoted from the Humbrol and ModelMaster ranges.

Construction:

As you would expect I tackled the aircraft interior first, including the very sparsely detailed cabin and the fairly rudimentary cockpit. Inside the cockpit you are provided with seats, sticks, floor, instrument panel and a rear wall separating the cockpit from the cabin area. Nothing is provided for the cabin, so I cut out some plasticard to add in a floor, and did a combo of raiding the spares box and using bits of stretched sprue and plasticard to put in some cabin seats. Everything supplied in the kit fits reasonably well but a touch of trimming was needed on the cockpit floor to get it to fit inside the fuselage.

The cabin windows were put into place, some fit well, others didn’t, so you need to do a dry run with each and swapping some of the windows around even works! Don’t ask me why. Once the windows are installed you can then bring the fuselage halves together. Several clamps were needed to keep it from prying apart, but no doubt this is probably more due to my cabin handiwork than the shortcomings of the kit.

Once this is done the canopy, which comes in five pieces, can then be fitted. Neither the sub assemblies or the final product are perfect fits by any means and the final sub assembly requires sanding underneath, on the top and sides to blend into the fuselage. A dip in Future wax polish helps remove the scratches and blemishes that come from sanding. The engine is tackled next, and is simply a basic engine block onto with a propeller shaft glued to a stopper at the back and the propeller blades added onto the front, to ensure the parts can be rotated. The engine itself is trapped inside the cowling which also has a rudimentary exhaust pipe to add at its rear.

I was ready for an exercise in frustration when I tackled the wings, as both come in five parts, which is probably a bit of an overkill. The underwing portions of both the upper and lower wings are one piece with the upper sections split into halves either side. The fit of the underwing portions is not that great and after a few dry runs, trimming and some filler they can be coaxed to fit. The interplane struts are fiddly and I attached these to the lower wing and then sat the upper wing on top of them afterward. Sounds much easier than it is to do because the struts must be nearly fully vertical before the two wings would meet. The aileron hinges are all separate and must be very carefully removed from the parts tree, lest they flick up into the air and land somewhere in that void known as the carpet to never be seen again. The rigging was done with some invisible thread, and as already mentioned the instructions give you dimensions which are handy to work with. I can safely convey that this area of the kit was both the hardest and longest construction phase so spend your time as persistence will pay off.

The tailplanes were added next, and those who have the kit in front of them while reading this review will note that I am not necessarily progressing in the same order as the instructions say. This is the choice of the modeller in my opinion, as instructions are there to guide you. The tailplanes are best added first before the supporting struts, which were affixed with super glue on my example for added strength.

The fixed undercarriage needs plenty of care in assembling since it is both fragile and difficult to get straight and level. The struts need very careful removal from the parts tree as they will be very easy to snap. In the final stages I added the nice array of external steps, probes, masts and so forth which are well catered for in the kit. Take your time with these, firstly to remove very carefully from the parts tree and secondly position on the airframe where they are supposed to go as not all of them have readily identifiable locating points. Another exercise which is fiddly but worth the effort once completed.

Colour Schemes:

There are five options one can choose from the kit, two of which are Czech and the others being single choices from the Soviet, East German and Polish Air Forces, all of which are versions depicted in the nineties. In the order stated the colour schemes are an overall Stone and Dark Green upper over lower Neutral Grey; Russian field green over neutral grey; Dark Green and Light Green camouflage over grey undersides and finally the Polish version being Dark Green over Grey, similar to one of the Czech options stated. Humbrol and Modelmaster paints are quoted for depicting in the scheme desired. The Russian field green is actually deleted from the Humbrol range so you either need to be lucky with your stock, find another comparable alternative, or if you only use Humbrol then mix up a match using several paints.

Decals:

The decal sheet is really quite basic with only the serial numbers, national insignia and fuselage codes provided. They are in excellent colour register with a very matt finish and only a small amount of carrier film. Using decal solvent they bedded down onto the model beautifully, but were a bit thin and needed very careful handling. They were hard to move around on the model once they hit the surface.

Accuracy:

The dimensions from the model when compared to quoted reference material showed my kit coming up a scale foot short in span but only a couple of inches in length. This suggests therefore that it is a little out of proportion but I must say I could not really see it when looking at the finished model against photographs and other reference material. The interplane struts are too vertical though, and should be set an angle. Normally I would suggest this could be partly due to my own building techniques, but the struts would only fit in the vertical position as I mentioned in my construction notes. It comes up as a fairly convincing replica, but I am no rivet counter, so other modellers who have built this kit may differ in their opinion.

Conclusion:

Not a kit that is for novices or anyone without at least some biplane and rigging skills acquired. The canopy and wings are the only real obstacles as far as fit is concerned in this kit, otherwise it is generally a reasonably straight forward kit to put together. It is certainly great to see such an interesting subject offered in mainstream quality type plastic and I would recommend this kit to anyone interested in the subject and having intermediate skills with biplane kits.

web hosting • domain names
web design • online games