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Commander of the 156th IAP
Lt.Col. S.F. Dolgushin,
215th IAD, 8th IAK, 4th VA, Kluzow, Germany, April 1945
Despite being a modern kit and,
without any doubt, still the best not only La-7, but a radial-engined
Lavochkin fighter in 1/72nd scale at all, it still leaves a lot to be desired
in terms of both accuracy and detail.
The main problem areas of the kit
(fixed in this build) are:
- Wrong-shaped
wing tips (actually beginning at approx. 1/3rd of the span from the tip) both
in profile and frontal view. While fixing this error, the aileron
surface detail (being originally in "shrink-wrap" style) was lost
and a new, more correct representation of doped fabric tautened over the frame
with rib tapes added was done.
- Almost empty
main wheel-wells: very little detail was provided and the most of what
was available was wrong anyway. So, they had to be almost completely reworked.
Some detail was scratch built of plastic and some corrections were done using
Mr. Surfacer as well. The correct “ceiling” of the wheel bay
area being originally just the inner surface of the upper main wing half was
cut off, given the accurate profile and then positioned on its correct place.
- Inaccurate
propeller spinner. It was corrected with Mr. Surfacer.
- Very basic
representation of the louvers mounted in front of the engine being originally
just a disc with a relief detail, while there should actually be empty
intervals between the separate blades as well as between the blade tips and
the cowling inner surface visible. To achieve the desired result, the excess
plastic was removed from the original part, the edges of the blades were
sanded off and the part was positioned onto a plastic tube mounted in the
cowling interior.
- Gun ports
being just holes in the cowling front ring, while their lower surface should
actually go through the entire cowling. This was corrected by adding plastic
inserts to the appropriate areas.
- The same had
to be done with the wing root air intakes.
- Cockpit
interior behind the pilot’s seat/radio compartment - again, almost empty
and what was available, was wrong. Eventually the entire interior was scratch
built there.
- The cockpit
itself, despite some etched parts provided, could also benefit from some
improvements as otherwise it still looks somewhat toy-like. Some cables and
instruments were added there for more realism as well.
- The cockpit
borders were too thick and, in addition, not exactly parallel,
therefore, some sanding was required here as well.
- Canopy.
Although crystal-clear, it is (both 1-piece and 3-piece parts) unfortunately
thick enough to be unusable for displaying in open position. On the other
hand, if displayed in closed position, due to the thickness, the cockpit
interior looks severely distorted. The kit part was eventually replaced with
the vacu-canopy by Pavla.
- The joint of
the wing and the fuselage resulted in some sort of a small “peak” in the
lower fuselage line. While correcting this, some moderate re-shaping of the
fuselage in this area was required.
- In addition,
the landing gear flaps were thinned down, some missing access hatches were
engraved and some small details (e.g., Venturi tube) were added.
Click on
images below to see larger images
Camouflage and Markings
The model was finished with WEM
enamels: AMT-7 for lower and AMT-11 for upper surfaces.
According to the description in
the [2], where a photo and a colour profile of this particular a/c was
published probably for the first time, before the handing over to Dolgushin as
its personal a/c, the original paint was completely removed and it
was re-primed and re-painted. The stencil data weren’t re-applied.
The kit decals turned out to be
the next major problem. Although of very good quality, the most proved to be
unusable due to their wrong shape or dimensions. For instance, the white
borders of the stars were too narrow and the number “93” as well as
the under-wing stars were just too small. The star on the tail was
corrected with white paint and the other stars were replaced by appropriate
markings from other decal sheets. The tactical numbers were cut out from the
solid white decals sheet.
References
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1. La-7 MBI
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2. Mir Aviatsii/Aviation
World Magazine No.1(1992)
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3. Classic
Colours - Soviet Air Force Fighter Colours 1941-45 by Erik Pilawskii
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4. La-7
Walkaround (VVS Museum Monino)
Igor Svetlov (IS)
Click on
images below to see larger images
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