Hobby Boss 1/72 MiG-15UTI Midget

HOBBY BOSS 1:72 MIKOYAN MIG-15UTI MIDGET

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

Kit Details:

Hobby Boss #80262 - 1/72 scale - MiG-15UTI Midget

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 and found underneath the vacform tray in the box is also provided (so look underneath!), 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, very similar to the MiG-15 kit with the fuselage and canopy appearing to be the only modified parts for this 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:

An A4 landscape sheet folded in half to make an A5 sized booklet makes the instructions which are pretty standard fare for these sized Hobby Boss kits. One side it is full colour with the a picture of model accompanied by symbols and then adjacent are four view colour and marking diagrams for the two versions the kit allows for. The centre spread of the instructions is a sprue map followed by two main assembly diagrams containing four or five construction diagrams which are pretty straightforward to follow. Some paint information is provided as you go along, more could be provided though, and is all keyed from Mr.Color ranges. However, small cross reference tables are provided for Humbrol, Modelmaster, Tamiya and Vallejo ranges for the paints used in the external scheme only which is a nice touch.

Construction:

You start off in the cockpit which is really just a two seat version of the recent MiG-15 build I did. As a result, you will find most of my review will copy or be very similar to the single seat kit. The instructions do have you start off with undercarriage and underwing tanks first, but as neither was going to be part of my build I went straight to the cockpit. This is a reasonable looking cockpit tub into which goes a pair of tall boy seats and instrument panels, with control sticks already molded within and some detail on side consoles. Annoyingly there is no detail on the instrument panels themselves nor is a decal supplied. A bit of sprucing up of the consoles is therefore needed and really it came down to painting the panels black and using a bit of aluminium, white, red and yellow tiny "blotches" to resemble possible instrumentation. 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.

The cockpit tub and nose splitter fits very neatly into the bottom fuselage half. Two underfuselage "windows" need to be glued into place. 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, I found it easier to affix the upper half by pressing down the rear fuselage first before the front. 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 flush fit to the wing design which obviously goes on the appropriate wing it is meant to, so test fit first. From my experience with the other kit, if you decide on the traditional drop tank design be careful about removing the brackets from the sprue, although four are provided (when you only need two).

For wheels up modellers like myself the gear doors are a very poor fit and needed constant test fit and trimming to get into place, but even then it requires filling and sanding, as did the rear airbrakes which were affixed in the closed position. This work and effort took longer than just about all the other parts of the build combined! The nose gear doors were sticking out and I never did quite get them flush to the fuselage although they are reasonably acceptable. As a lot of filling and sanding was needed, it's a good idea to leave off all the smaller parts like nose cannon and underwing antennae masts until this work is complete.

The nose ring and nose cannon were added to the front fuselage section and both fit nicely although being nit picky, the nose ring could do with small amount of filling and a rub to blend into the fuselage. As this aircraft was not going to be finished in natural metal I didn't do this as it wasn't critical (silver paint tends to show flaws). There are small antennae masts to be added under each wing and on top of the fuselage beside the cockpit and it is a bit like serving in tennis, you can go roughly and full pelt with the first one, because the kit provides a spare of each if you stuff up. I actually like the idea of the spare antennae masts, thanks Hobby Boss. All that was then left to do was to affix the canopy which probably doesn't really need to be glued either.

Colour Schemes:

Two Mig-15UTI's can be chosen from this kit with a Soviet Red 54 from 1980 or an Iraqi air force example from the same year. The Soviet example is finished in a two tone dark green, green and tan camouflage over their typical air superiority blue undersides while the Iraqi version is finished in an upper Dark Earth and Tan camouflage over the same blue undersides. It was tempting to do the Soviet example but there aren't too many Iraqi (or should I say non-major air power) based aircraft in my collection so I couldn't go past doing that example. For this I used 90% Hu 47 Light Sea Blue and 10% Hu 147 light aircraft grey to achieve the underside scheme.

Decals:

While there is virtually no stencilling provided the national insignias and smaller decals are all in excellent colour register and look nice on the decal sheet, if a bit glossy and thick looking. I have really come to love using Hobby Boss decals, they are easy to apply and suit Gunze Sangyo setting solution as if they were designed specifically for that product. While they always seem a bit glossy and have a bit of film when applied, I find that on most occasions they easily disappear under a subsequent gloss cote with that "painted on" look at the end.

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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