MiG-23MF - Romania - 1995
Interestingly, none of the dielectric areas are painted that typical dark green, but rather light grey.
The main intrument panel is from Yahuu. Surprisingly, all three are fitting well together.
Plenty of parts, quite expensive, but looking great.
The fuselage cross-section of the kit is indeed oval in the rear area instead of round and therefore requires this enlargement. I mean the fit of the fuselage halves was bad anyway, this only brings even more work. Whereas the 0.8mm are rather 2-3mm.
This step killed the mojo and was the reason the project was paused some months.
Also, the additional air vents (the two squares on each lateral side) need to be cut, since they are almost always in the opened position on ground.
Check out the thickness of that plastic part. It might not be clear from the picture, but it's just below 1cm (!!).
Worth it in my opinion.
Note the large gaps between the clear parts (lights) and the grey styrene They were filled and sanded later
There were large gaps between the lights (clear parts) and the hole they are positioned in. These gaps were also filled with acrylic putty after masking the transparent parts first.
The overall fit of the air intakes and nearby wing leading edge is very bad. They required an additional styrene strip and extensive sanding.
The air brakes don't really fit well and any filling/sanding efforts in that area will ruin the quality unless again extensive work is involved.
Any work on detailing the landing gear bays will follow after a first priming.
While I am over and over again dissapointed with their resin weapons, the ResKit wheels are so far close to flawless in my experience.
Not sure if to use the mud guards or not, since not all early MiG-23s had them.
The struts are still requiring some cable or two.
LATER EDIT: I removed the paint from the landing gear struts and repainted them in a steel colour.
The area of the engine intakes required excessive sanding which eliminated most details. The upper surfaces were newly scribed, while "rivets" are added once more to maintain the optical compatibility with the rest.
Rivets are not making any sense in this scale, but who wants to sand down all details and rescribe the entire model completely? I surely won't do that.
The air brakes will be in the opened position.
A masking strategy is in the making.
Only small patches or "snakes" from this main color will be visible at the end, but i'm curious if it was worth it and if it changes in any positive way the final result.
Therefore I decided to use masks. So I found some plans, reduced them to 1:72 and tried to draw the tan patches which will be masked (drawn here with green for no reason).
Luckily I found in the mean time sufficient photos of the number 224 to reproduce the camouflage patches.
Some areas from the top side are not visible in any photograph so I had to be creative.
(the right stabilizer has a wrong pattern here, will be redone)
Drawing the masks with a pencil becomes easy.
(the right stabilizer has a wrong pattern, will be redone)
Honestly, I would rather do this another 4 hours, instead of trying a potentially messy free-hand airbrush painting for this specific camouflage here (or anything similar whatsoever).
My experience tells me it's more likely to take me even longer with the free-hand painting due to endless required corrections, to which the risk of ruining something or the model increases with each correction (I already trashed a painted MiG-23 due to this). Plus, the camouflage patches are rather hard lined.
These masks will also allow for adding any lightning technique I want for the general green.
It took more than 6 hours to cut and apply the mask, maybe one hour to paint and 10 minutes to remove the masks.
Some corrections still required. Minor overspray and some paint running under the masks, but overall minor.
The radome and dielectric tip of the vertical stabilizer will be painted light grey.
Decals and weathering next.
Otherwise well detailed with some spare fins in case the carpet monster kidnapps some of them.
As usual, the worst of lightning, killing the shading effects. The model is more attractive to the eye in real life, but that's that now.
All those small PEs around the cabin are considerably improving the model.
The additionally opened air vents (around the air intakes) were worth the effort.
The small side mirrors and an additional PE for the main rear mirror were from the MiG-21MF kit of Eduard.
Note the itsy-bitsy tiny door fixed with some thin PEs on the main lading gear leg.
The R-13 missiles together with the complete pylons are originating from the same Eduard MiG-21 kit used for some cockpit and canopy parts.
Note the crowded main landing gear, a messy design with likely issues during service.
During the final steps I managed to break some of those tiny antennas several times.
Коментари
The Romanian Air Force had the best WarPac schemes! Analogous to the Italians in WWII (IMHO)…I'll take a seat, now…
Thank you for following. Andy, indeed there were a couple of really awesome camouflage schemes in the Romanian Air Force (post WWII), like some late MiG-15s, most schemes of the MiG-23s and the two main schemes of the MiG-21 LancerR.
This one camouflage scheme here won't be easy, but getting there with this nightmare of a kit is the bigger challenge.
That looks like a hell of a build! 😮 That engine does look amazing, the kit not so.... You're a truly brave man! 😄 👍
big job ahead 😮
camo scheme is very attractive and challenging too
ResKit wheels are worth buying 👀
Just in time for the camo work 🙂 You're going to mask this? Excellent detail-up work👌🏻
Thank you Daniel! I will definitely use masks, since I want to avoid any airbrush accidents in this specific case. It's a lot of work, but I prefer the safe way. The "snakes" are too thin in some areas and they don't seem to be too fuzzy/airbrushy on the real aircraft either (except a few locations).
Very impressive! You've managed to turn this nightmare kit into a beauty!
Hello Marius 🙂
It's a very interesting camouflage : Great work, congratulations !! 🙂
Following ... 😉
Demanding camo. Tough masking. Mission accomplished! Congrats Marius!
Thank you so much for the interest and kind words.
It's still a long road ahead, but it should be less frustrating now.
But yes, this kit is famous for a reason 🙂.
I agree with the mates. Great job and very nice result 👍
Waiting for the next progress.
I don't know what you mean Marius, there's the shading, there are the panel lines, there's the metal exhaust, all looks nice. Well done!
Excellent result, espiecially considering the starting quality of the kit!
Thank you all for the very kind words and appreciation. I might start soon another one of these kits for an Iraqi BN version.
I missed that one so far. Painful work but good result in the end. I read with particular interest your build information as a Mig 23 is on my wish list. Your blog wasn't exactly an advertisement for the KP kit.
Any recommendation for a Mig-23ML in scale 1:72?
Very nice build and paint job, Marius. Outstanding result! Congrats. 👌
I am flattered by the feedback. You guys are again very kind!
@Michael: the best MiG-23 in 1:72 for all versions is still the RV Aircraft/KP kit, but has plenty of problems.
But luckily, Clear Prop will release in less than a month a very detailed and promising kit for the MLA:
MiG-23MLAE-2 Flogger-G (Clear Prop! CP72031, 1:72)
britmodeller.com/for..ease-in-2023/page/7/
Marius, you did a great job. It's a good example that even a bad kit can make a nice model. 👍
Marius, thanks for your feedback. The Ckear Prop kit really seems worth waiting for. Thanks for the hint.
Since I was mentioning it before, the wonderful MLD/MLA kit from Clear Prop! has just been released today on their website:
clearpropmodels.com/catalog
Great build and informative narrative. The camo is unique for sure. Can't wait for your ClearProp build 🙂 👍
Thank you Alec!
I just ordered two of those MLA kits from Clear Prop, so probably at least a short kit review will follow as soon as the package arrives.
Thank you all for the kind words once more. As promised, I also managed to make the first (external) inbox review of the newly released MiG-23MLD from Clear Prop (MiG-23MLD - Syria - 1989 | Album by Redicus (1:72))
Nevertheless, for the MiG-23MF and BN versions we are still stuck with this RV Aircraft/KP kit.
Album info
Romania received a total of 46 MiG-23s in the late 1970s, which became operational in 1979. The exact count was: 36 MiG-23MFs and 10 MiG-23UBs.
Once the Iron Curtain fell and Romania was no longer supplied with parts for its MiG-23 and MiG-29 aircraft fleet, these jets were facing imminent premature withdrawal from service. There were efforts made to keep the MiG-29s in service through an independent upgrade program called MiG-29 Sniper, but this effort failed due to cost reasons during challenging economic times.
Instead, it was decided to upgrade the MiG-21MFs to western standards, leading to the MiG-21 LanceR (A, B or C). See my LanceR project for more information:
MiG-21MF LanceR C - Romania - 2012 | Album by Redicus (1:72)
No such plans were intended for the MiG-23s, for which the fate of withdrawal towards the 2000s was already sealed.
The Romanian MiG-23s had at least five different camouflage schemes. They were initially painted grey but later received different camouflage schemes involving different tones of green, brown or beige. The model I am building captures their most popular camouflage as seen in 1995 with beige "snakes" on top of a kaki-green, my absolut favorite.
The MiG-23s were officially withdrew from service in 2003, many of them with barely 500 flight hours. By approximately 2011 all but a small number (5?) were ultimately scrapped.
My initial subject was the number 222, also known as "The Disident". The nickname was earned after presumably the engine of the white 222 refused to start in a demonstration in front of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, or so says the legend. Unfortunately, there are extremely few photographs of the 222 so I couldn't really manage to reproduce the camouflage. I decided in the end for the 224 included in the KP kit, for which sufficient photographs are available from different angles.