La-7 Soviet Aces of 9 GvIAP and 156 IAP
Dual Combo Build

Two La-7s from the Eduard Dual Combo boxing.

For the first plane, I decided to use one of the marking options provided on the decal sheet that I haven't often seen, the plane of kapitan Aleksey Alelyukhin from 9GvIAP (Guards Fighter Air Regiment) with an arrow-pierced heart emblem.

For the second plane, I wanted something a bit more unusual. I have always liked the plane the plane of polkovnik Dolgushin, CO of 156 IAP that is included on the decal sheet. After some research, I found color profiles of other 156 IAP machines on Massimo Tessitori's excellent SovietWarplane webpage. One of these was the plane of Starshy leytentant Mihail Zelenkin, an ace with 32 kills that fought and survived through almost the entire war on the Eastern Front.

Eduard's La-7 is a beautiful kit, I believe their first top-notch 1:72 one, but accurate it is not. The landing gear legs are too long, there are shape and detail inacuracies, etc. To list some:

1. Grossly incorrect propeller spinner shape
2. Undercarriage front legs are 2mm to tall
3. Incorrect cowling shape, which is also 2mm short making the entire plane lenght too short
4. Incorrect front windshield shape that should be narrower and less trapezoid in shape

All of these were corrected. I 3d printed cowl extension rings, I reshaped and added a new armored glass frame to the canopies, corrected the undercarriage legs, reshaped the propeller spinners... This was also the first time I added rivets (on the metal surfaces).

Sadly, this build was accompanied by numerous errors and mishaps from my end. I bought the Blue Series Hataka "Late WWII Soviet Colours" set for this project but I had some issues dilluting them so the paint peeled after masking on the first attempt. I then managed to spill some thinner on both while cleaning up and repairing the paintjob, so I had to completely disassemble and paint strip them... meaning I had to rebuild the cockpits with all the PE. Sadly, the canopies fogged or got damaged during that process. Both sat in limbo for nearly two years but I finally decided to push through and completed them in May 2022.

For Zelenkin's plane, I painted the bord number 47 and used the decals provided for 156 IAP's striking tail markings but the build isn't fully completed - the real plane had Zelenkin's victory markings (red for individual, white for shared) on the port side under the canopy but I don't have decals to reproduce them. I didn't have enough clear canopy parts in remotely decent condition to display both with open, so after a toss up, White 49 lost and ended up closed. I tohught I had lost the PE landing gear doors so I used the plastic ones, and conveniently found them just after the superglue had cured.

Both painted in standard late war Soviet fighter camo pattern using AMT-11 Blue Grey and AMT-12 Dark Grey upper surfaces and AMT-7 Blue lower surfaces. I used Hataka acrylics, which I believe are far too dark and suggest to lighten with about 1:5 ration white. Weathered with oil washes and oil paints. Both 9 GvIAP and 156 IAP operated from a number of forward airfields in the last months of the war during a wet and cold Winter 1945, so I went heavy with the weathering, particularly on the undersides and Zelenkin's plane, which was operational between September 1944 through to VE Day in May 1945.


Looking at the photos, I try to console myself that Soviet plexiglass was of notoriously bad quality up to the very end of the war and would quickly yellow and fog up but that's more wishful whinking.