Hobby Boss 1/72 MiG-15bis Fagot

HOBBY BOSS 1:72 MIKOYAN MIG-15BIS FAGOT

Reviewer: Mark B (SMAKR Webmaster) (smakr1@optusnet.com.au)
Kit Built + Review Submitted: May 2009

Kit Details:

Hobby Boss No. 80263 - MiG-15bis Fabot - Easy Assembly Authentic Kit

Aircraft History:

Following the end of the war, blueprints for many advanced German aircraft designs ended up in Russia where they were thoroughly examined and evaluated. One of the most promising designs was the Focke-Wulf Ta 183 jet fighter. Featuring a 40 degree swept wing and high T-tail, with an estimated max speed of Mach 0.9 and a service ceiling over 10,000 meters it no doubt would have been a formidable fighter had it entered service.

The Russians completed six Ta 183 prototypes and the first flight was on July 2, 1947. Some unpleasant low-speed flying characteristics were discovered, calling for a few design changes. The new refined prototype, designated S-01, then flew for the first time on December 30, 1947. It was powered by a RD-45F turbojet engine with centrifugal compressor, this engine being a copy of the British Rolls-Royce ‘Nene’ supplied to the Russians just after the war. Despite this rather primitive engine the prototype was capable of achieving Mach 0.9 in level flight and Mach 0.92 in a dive. This proved the soundness of the design and in May 1948 the aircraft entered production as the MiG-15.

Shortly afterwards a few more problems were encountered and this led to the improved version, the MiG-15bis, entering service. Amongst other things this latter featured an improved VK-1 engine with enlarged combustion chambers, turbine blades and tailpipe to handle a greater flow of air, raising static thrust and improving reliability. Hydraulic ailerons and "revolver" type autocannons with greater ammunition capacity were also fitted. Although the three autocannons had a rather slow rate of fire their large-calibre ammunition made them deadly, especially against four-engined bombers. The autocannons were mounted on a separate platform under the nose; this platform was attached by four steel cables and could be manually lowered, thereby greatly simplifying routine maintenance and allowing for rapid rearming.

The MiG-15bis had a minimum take-off run of about 500 m and a landing run of about 700 m.

During the Korean War the MiG-15 was used extensively and on November 8, 1950, 1^st Lt. Russell Brown, flying a F-80 shot down a MiG-15 in the first all-jet dogfight in history.

Despite the good performance of the ‘Fagot’ (as the MiG-15 was designated by NATO) many aircraft were lost due to the professional and more aggressive flight behavior of the US pilots.

About 16,000 MiG-15s of all types have been built in the former Soviet Union, Poland, former Czechoslovakia and under license in China. Nearly 40 countries used this sturdy aircraft and according to some sources some examples might actually still be in (limited) use.

The Kit:

A vacuform plastic tray inside the sturdy box contains the main bulk of the parts in nice secure housings. A single sprue which comes inside a plastic bag is also provided, along with a separately bagged decal sheet. Including three clear parts made up of a one-piece canopy, total parts count is about 45 in the kit. The detail is nice and the plastic is crisp without any flash. A couple of ejector stubs marr the interior of parts but overall not too bad.

Instructions:

A single laminated A4 sheet folded to make an A5 booklet, of which one side is full colour with some basic modelling info and art as well as four-view colours and markings for the two aircraft provided by the kit. The external scheme is catered for by a chart from various paint manufacturers, including Humbrol, ModelMaster and Mr Hobby. The centre spread has a sprue map and then two assembly steps (although the second step comes in three sections) which is pretty easy to follow. Mr Color ranges are given for detail painting during assembly.

Construction:

While the instructions have you start off with undercarriage and underwing tanks first, I opted to go for the cockpit. This is a reasonable looking cockpit tub into which goes a tall boy seat and instrument panel. The intake splitter section is glued onto the front of the tub. The cockpit calls for Mr.Color's Air Superiority Blue, which I am not sure is overly accurate and my translation into a "near enough is okay for me" match being Humbrol 25 Blue. There really is no console instrumentation as such nor is a decal supplied. A bit of sprucing up of the consoles is therefore needed.

The cockpit tub and nose splitter fits very neatly into the bottom fuselage half. The main wing is one-piece with a thin spar connecting the the two wings which are laid/glued/trapped into place on top of the bottom fuselage. The small exhaust cone is also added in the back and then the top fuselage piece comes down into place. Takes a bit of lining up the alignment pins and squeezing the cockpit opening over the seat but clicks into place very nicely. As with these kits it is possible to leave them unglued, but nothing quite beats glueing a kit together! Masking tape and rubber bands kept the halves together, then a little sanding of the join lines and a tiny bit of filling at wing roots was needed.

You have the option of a pair of different underwing fuel tanks and I chose the traditional drop tank design which was assembled together while the fuselage was drying. The bracket supplied had to be surgically removed from the sprue, why it also has a couple of extra lugs on the side to remove I have no idea, and turns the kit from a basic easy kit into one which is easy to ruin. And I managed to break one of the brackets. Thankfully Hobby Boss provide four brackets, and you only need two, one for each tank, but they are extremely easy to snap so be warned!

As many of you know I am a wheels up modeller so I went to affix the gear doors in the closed position. The wheel wells and the rear side of the doors all have some good structural and detail molded into them. The instructions were a bit vague on exactly which component of the gear door (as they come in parts) goes where, but you can play around with test fitting and their shapes to get the jigsaw right. Only one part of the main gear doors (the middle part) fitted well, all the rest were very poor fits and had to be clipped or trimmed to fit into position. The speed brakes were provided only seemingly to have open because they are also a very poor fit in the closed position requiring a lot of patience to carve them to match the shape of the housing, trim off the hinges and fill in the gaps. So much for an easyish kit!

There are a number of small pitot tubes and the like to fit on but thankfully these were much easier. The other bonus was that for all the small parts, including the mast, which were on the sprue labelled A, Hobby Boss kindly provided a spare! So if you snapped a part or lost it, there was another one on the A sprue. The parts from the C sprue only came as single components. The final thing to add was the canopy and this wasn't glued on, it clicked into place so well I left it unglued.

Colour Schemes:

There are two options available from this kit, both in overall natural metal with red featuring prominently. One is a MiG-15 "384" with red nose ring and lightning bolt on tail fin, from a V-VS unit, USSR that was stationed in China in 1951, presumably a Korean War bird. The second is a PLA air force with Chinese style roundels on the wings only, a large red rear fuselage and tail section dubbed "red fox".

Decals:

The decal sheet is very small but in very good register and brightly coloured red. I wasn't sure if the red will match Humbrol scarlet for the Chinese version, so I chose the USSR example. A red decal is provided for the nose which I used, but this was difficult to apply because it is one-piece and needs to fit around the small notch on top of the nose. I delicately cut it and applied it over several goes. I didn't really have any major issues at all with applying the decals, but when one curled up the next day whilst trying to seal them in with a gloss cote, I realised they needed a good couple of days to cure on the model.

Overall Recommendation:

From a modelling point of view this was a great little kit to build and certainly looks the part when finished. It won't satisfy those are still searching for a definitive MiG-15 in this scale but it is still pretty good. Obviously Hobby Boss has tried to get a realistic looking replica combined with the engineering to make the kit as easy as possible to put together. I am not sure whether it would be appropriate for the base novice, but certainly after tackling a few kits this should be a breeze. Happy to recommend highly!

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