PZL-Mielec An-2T "Colt" Polish Air Force 7447

Construction starts with the cockpit as usual; I decided to do the cockpit and detail painting according to the instructions of the Revell boxing of this Trumpeter kit, using the Gunze (Mr. Hobby) Aqueous equivalents of the Revell paints suggested. 

Paints used were: Mr. Hobby H67 for the cockpit main colour, with black (H12) and silver (H8) for detailing. The rear side of the bulkhead, which will face the totally empty cabin section, was painted with middle stone (H71) as the equivalent for beige suggested by Revell instructions. 

Inside of the fuselage painted, with H67 and H71 (hardly anything is going to be seen from the outside, so I didn't "overdo" it). 

The fuselage has been assembled; one (or both) of the halves suffer from a minimal warping, but nothing that can't be fixed with a little adhesive tape while the glue is drying. 🙂 

...and then came my favourite phase: wheel painting. 🙂 Paints used were H77 (tire black), plus H340 (central part) and H323 mixed with white (outer part) for the rim. Still could have worked out better... 

Three-colour camouflage pattern applied; I had trouble finding the matching paint for the blue colour, and I still feel that I should have added a bit more white into the mix. In addition, border lines of the colours need to be "tidied" in some places. 

Engine painted; colour for the central part is H56. 

Propeller painted, resting on the engine while drying. H8 was used for the bare metal parts at the hub, H56 for the blades themselves, and H329 for the tips. 

Some modifications had to be made regarding both the upper and lower side of the engine cowling. The air intake of the engine is too large in size, so I cut it down a bit (approximately half of its height); the attachment hole is also in the wrong place, as it would put the part somewhere in the middle of the cowling, but it's at the front on the real aircraft. The same goes for the oil radiator, but it has to be "pushed" a few millimetres rearwards (it's also to be noted that it's incorrect in its shape for an An-2, seems to be modeled after that of a Chinese Y-5, which should be no surprise). Strange that all boxarts of Trumpeter An-2 kits (at least the ones in this scale) show both parts in their correct places and with correct shapes. 

Engine compartment assembled. Some filling (and corrections in painting) will be necessary; I guess I'll do it after this part is put together with the fuselage, just before painting the entire aircraft. Some glue may be enough for filling. 

Fuselage assembly completed (except the cockpit and some small parts). A bit more work was necessary on the nose section, with some fit problems on one hand (I had little success in solving them), and some shape issues on the other. The part that's intended to be the exhaust pipe was twice as thick as it should be, according to photos and drawings, so I had to cut it in half and do some sanding to achieve a shape that's at least remotely correct. Blue colour on the camouflage won't appear so bright after the application of matt finish, as I tested it on the horizontal stabilizers. Edges are still in need of some corrections. 

Horizontal stabilizers put in their place; it was the same struggle as with the Hungarian "Colt", but when it came to the struts, I accidentally cut off the upper attachment pins instead of the remaining plastic from the sprue, just to make matters worse. 

 

Decals applied on the fuselage; the inaccuracies of the kit became the most prominent when I applied the serial numbers, as it was impossible to put them opposite each other because of the incorrect placement of the small window on the starboard side. To my bad luck, I started on the port side, placing the number right behind the outer frame of the door (as I saw it on photos), then applying softener on them to conform to the surface... 

So when it came to the starboard side, the port side decals were already fixed to the surface. Who cares about it if one is about a whole centimeter behind the other? Ouch...
Anyway, the numbers come from a decal sheet by HAD, and the insignia are from the kit. 

Cockpit windows installed. While the fit is surprisingly good (considering that it's made of three parts), the shape of the window frames leaves a lot to be desired (well, still does my canopy painting, too). 

After a quick fit test with the upper part of the upper wings, trouble ahead again. The rear of the wing part has a different (wider) cross-section than that of the fuselage at the same place. Took a bit of carving and sanding (with a sharp knife and rough sandpaper, respectively) to make it fit better (I mean, to make that ugly mismatch less prominent), but then along came another fault to be dealt with, specifically an enormous gap between the front of the wings and the cockpit's clear part. 

Going on with dry fit tests. The lower wings will also need some cutting, sanding and filling to conform to the fuselage, both on the front (entirely wrong cross-section) and at the rear (I guess it's just a bit too thick and wide there, so it's going to be a little easier work). 

That nice big gap repeats itself where the upper wing's lower part joins the fuselage from the side. Doesn't look promising, but I think it may be solved by cutting off the wing/fuselage attachment pins, and just "push" the whole upper wing forward as much as possible. The resulting gap at the rear will be easier to fill, I guess... 

After some sanding, the shape of the lower wings at the root is still far from perfect, but at least it fits the shape of the fuselage more closely. I'll do some refinement when the wings and the fuselage are assembled. 

After some breaks and a lot of thinking about how to do things, the upper wings have been assembled. There is an ugly gap between the flap and the fuselage, so I tried to fill it with some plastic (pieces of kit sprues have been used and carved to size and shape). Although not very realistic, I glued the flap to the wing root, as I thought the seven little joints (which, I think, are a bit oversized anyway) might not support the weight of the flap. Quite a few holes had to be drilled on both the upper and lower wing parts for the black thread used to imitate tension wires. 

Yellow-green and green colours have been applied to the upper part of the upper wing (note that green paint was still wet at the time I took the photo); blue will be added later, maybe together with the painting of the underside (with some minor corrections afterwards). The gap behind the clear part was filled (more or less) with glue, and a piece of plastic (about a millimeter thick) was inserted to fill the huge "trench" at the rear of the wing/fuselage joint. 

"Almost" done with the upper side; the black stripe on the top was made by photocopying the HAD decal sheet, and using the stripe decal as a mask. 

Painting of the upper wings done, with a matt finish applied afterwards. Remember that, contrary to the instructions by Trumpeter, Polish aircraft do not carry roundels on the top of the wings (at least in the era this kit is intended to represent). I underestimated the need for the mixed blue colour, so I ran out of it. First I worried that it was the end of building my Polish An-2, but then somehow I managed to achieve exactly the same tone by mixing blue and white again. 

At last, after some work on the wing roots with a file, the lower wings are in their place. Some filling and sanding is still to be done, as the fit is terrible. 

Done with the painting on the underside. Landing lights have also been installed (with terrible fit, as one may see; I corrected the clear part on the starboard wing after looking at the photo in its actual size). 

Wing struts installed, and braces fixed in their final position; after the thread was stretched and cut to size, I fixed it with cyanoacrilate glue at the wing roots. Painting needs to be fixed in these places. Connecting rods have also been made from small pieces in my sparebox; they were fixed to the braces with cyanoacrilate glue. 

On the real aircraft (and on most An-2s) the rigging is of the same colour as the underside, so I painted the threads blue. 

Painting on the underside completed, with national insignia applied on the wings. 

Main landing gear struts and tail gear installed; the main gear parts look toy-like, promising a fiddly assembly at the same time at first glance, but they look surprisingly decent when assembled. The main wheels and some small parts are left, plus an overall matt finish. 

After the main gear wheels and door step installed, and a matt finish (with Revell spray colour) applied, no more work left on the underside. 

End of the building (or maybe just my patience, haha); some errors of the kit I couldn't fix, and some I have done myself, I'm quite satisfied with the final result. Well, probably I could mix a little more white into the blue colour of the underside and camouflage. 

 

 

The model looks quite like an An-2 from this angle (not much, but quite). 🙂