**** DONE: 1/48 MiG-3 "Black 12" - Allied Manufactured Aircraft

[Wurger]

 

[4bogreen]

Hey Jkim,

I have the Eduard PE set. On the drawings there are struts on the oil/watercooler flap. Almost all Soviet WWII era aircraft have these kind of "mechanic" on their oil/watercooler flap.

The landing gear leggs are to long. The kit suplied ones are without the weight on it. Cut out 1/3 of the legg (one of the three wrinkles of the rubber cover on the shockabsorber).

Unfortunally i am new to this site, so i have to figure out how to post some photo's here...

HTH,

Remco

 

[4bogreen]

Ah, here we go...

Foto's and drawings of the flap struts and landinggear.

HTH,

Remco

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work so far!

 

[JKim]

Thanks for the info and pics, Remco! I see what you mean by the grill at oil cooler intake. I'll see what I can do about replicating this...

I can use the PDF instructions from the Eduard PE sheet as a guide for the struts at the cooler outlet.

 

[JKim]

Instead of working on the cockpit, I decided to spend a little more time on the cooler housing based on the info brought up by Remco. Using stretched sprue, I added some actuating struts to the exit flap...

The grating in the cooler intake was fashioned out of brass sheet and stretched sprue.

Ok... I THINK I can move on to the cockpit now! The instrument panel is a bit of a challenge...

The instrument faces are not well defined with zero molded detail within the faces. No supplied decal so I will have to punch my own instruments from spare decals.

 

[4bogreen]

Hey, good work JKim!

The cockpit color was A-14 "grey". I have the Akan colors, and its a mid to darker grey. Sometimes people use a blue color, that is not correct. The very early MiG-3s had a "silver" color on their cockpit. This was done for a high protection against UV light. In 1940 / 1941, the use of A-14 was ordered, for all interior coloring. Wheelbay was pre war "light blue" undersurface color, landing gear was A-14 grey or undersurface color, depending on the batch delivered sub componements. Wheel disk is probably 4bo green (a dark green with a hemp / yellowish glow in it).

HTH,

Remco

 

[JKim]

Hey, good work JKim!

The cockpit color was A-14 "grey". I have the Akan colors, and its a mid to darker grey. Sometimes people use a blue color, that is not correct. The very early MiG-3s had a "silver" color on their cockpit. This was done for a high protection against UV light. In 1940 / 1941, the use of A-14 was ordered, for all interior coloring. Wheelbay was pre war "light blue" undersurface color, landing gear was A-14 grey or undersurface color, depending on the batch delivered sub componements. Wheel disk is probably 4bo green (a dark green with a hemp / yellowish glow in it).

HTH,

Remco

I have almost zero expertise when it comes to Russian aircraft. I am basing most of my decisions on what I can ascertain with internet research and with the help of my friends here at ww2aircraft. As far as interior colors of the MiG-3, I haven't found anything that I would call definitive and was going to go with an overall light blue/grey interior based on what Massimo Tessitori posted on his VVS page for the MiG-3...

blue-grey for the cockpit interior, instrument panel (with black quadrants) and radio boxes, radiator cowling interior and so on; (on some photos, I think to see also all-black instrument panel, but I'm not sure)

MiG-3 detail colors

 

[Wurger]

Actually the A-14 colour wasn't a grey one but it was the steel one. Unfortunately different references state different coulurs for the cockpit interior. These could have been the A-14 Steel or Light Grey. Also the wheel bays might be of the AE-9 paint or of the underside colours AMT-7/A-28m/A-18f/AII light blue. The silver colour was used for painting of interiors of the wooden fuselages at the beginning of the war. The MiG-1/3 fuselages at the cockpit area weren't wooden but of metal skin. This can indicate using of other colours for the metal protection. The indicator panel in the cockpit could be either light painted or black. It can be noticed in a couple of images of MiGs. Because prototypes of MiG1/3 were silver painted it is very likely their cockpits could be of the same colour. But the late series of the plane seem to be of different one. To be honest even Russians themselves don't know what the correct colour for the cockpit interior should be. So the light blue-gry colour is as possible as other coats as well.

And a note... the Black 12 wasn't the very early MiG-3 IMHO. She was of the late production aircraft rather.

 

[Crimea_River]

Great info here guys and well done on the fiddlies John.

 

[Wurger]

And here is a shot of a note I found in a book about the MiG-1/3...

 

[Wayne Little]

Great work and info!

 

[4bogreen]

Here is some of the interior color.

HTH,

Remco

 

[4bogreen]

Sorry, here are some better quallity photo's

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[JKim]

Here is some of the interior color.

One "interpretation" of the interior color anyway. I saw your build over at sovietwarplanes.com Nice work! I couldn't help but notice the heated discussion of the interior color. Right or wrong, I will probably plow ahead with the primary color choice of light blue/grey since I've already expended some significant time on the instrument panel that I do not want to repeat. IP dials were individually punched from an assortment of spare decals.

The canopy will be mounted in the closed position so the cockpit will hardly be visible.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

You did some magic on that instrument panel John! KUDOS sir!

 

[Wurger]

Agreed.

 

[JKim]

Finally got around to painting the cockpit. I decided to go stock here since it will be buttoned up and covered with the canopy when complete. Light blue-grey was used for the primary cockpit color with medium green for the seat panel and radio compartment. Seatbelts were scrounged from the spares box.

The gunsight is provided as a clear piece.

I dry fit the fuselage sides together to help aid alignment of the cockpit sidewalls and seatback angle.

 

[Wurger]

Looking really very good.