Trumpeter 1/48 MiG-23M Flogger B

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I masked off the bottom and did the panel pre-shading on top. I find that the increased size of this jet at 1/48 scale is hard to get used to. I'll get kinda impatient doing things like masking and preshading when there is more plane to cover. It's a bit of adjustment for me and lack of focus = rushing and rushing = sloppy work. So I purposefully set this aside to work on other things.


The back of the R-60 Aphid missiles are solid and I didn't want to leave them that way. First I toyed with styrene tubing but didn't have the right diameter.


Looking closer at the kit parts, I noticed that some of the other missiles had a donut shaped end piece that I decided to use on the Aphids. First I drilled a hole. It was hard to center the hole perfectly but as long as the diameter of the hole was somewhere between the inner and outer diameter of the donut, I was ok... hence this approach.


Some details were handpainted and then the missiles were given a panel wash to bring out details. The gun pod was also given a panel wash.



After the Aphids were painted, they were given a gloss coat and decals were applied. Then a flat coat. I changed the color of the dual R-60 racks from light blue to grey based on the excellent pictures that Wojtek posted. The racks were attached to the hardpoints.


I added the cannon barrels to the gun pod.


Armed with multiple views of 456 that Wojtek provided to me, I will be finishing up the preshading and attempting a go at the multi-color camo. And I've still got the R-24T Apex missiles to finish up. They also have solid ends and I'm not sure what I'll do there.
 
Some more work on the Flogger before I start my Hellcat build in GB 28.

The preshading has been completed... whew!


Before the camo painting, I attached a few of the exterior PE parts. The Flogger has a couple of arrow shaped antennas, one trailing on the tail fin and another one underneath the nose.



The kit provides a PE piece for the tail unit but the nose piece is a simple rod without the fins. BUT... the PE piece is foldable bit with with two arrow shapes so I cut it in two and attached one on the tail and used the other one for the nose.



After letting the preshading sit for a couple of days, I mulled on how I would approach the multi-color camo. Since the pictures show an obviously soft demarcation, I decided to airbrush the camo freehand without any masks. This has some issues that surfaced while painting, the most glaring was the difficulty in preserving the preshading while trying to add curved camo patterns.

First the beige color...


Next is the dark green...


And then the dark brown...


There were some touchups necessary with all three colors before I could remove the bottom masking. Although I had allowed the bottom color to cure for a few days, heavily thinned paint is usually less adherent to the plastic surface so I wasn't surprised to see that the masking tape lifted some paint off.



No choice but to go back over the bottom with the light blue/grey and more of the pre-shading is eliminated.


The "mismatch" of colors on the bottom are not a concern. They are just the effects of shooting heavily thinned color and will blend in with a clear coat.


I'm going to set this aside and think about this some more. I need to look at the colors a little bit. Aircraft #456 was resprayed a few times in its service and I'm trying to figure out whether to add what looks to be an additional green color. Also, the elimination of the pre-shading may be replaced with some post-shading.
 
To be honest it is not true. The kind of the PAF square was used from 1921 to 1993. The left, top square was red and the right top one white. In 1993 it was changed and the left top square became white while the right top one got the red. So the pic above shows the 456 with the early national insignia while the grey painted kite behind her the later one. The 456 got the late checker too but it was done much later. However the national insignia could be rotated 90 degrees right what could give the effect of the late square. Also please notice the the third MiG-23 behind the grey kite is of the same kind of the PAF insignia.










 
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Oh I see. I haven't heard anything such. The 28th Fighter Regiment was the only one equipped with the MiG-23MFs. In the past there wasn't much of info about them. Later with political changings in Poland it was possible to find out more and pictures of planes appeared. The kite was in service from 23.09.1981 to 05.08.1998 till her last flight was issued. The MiG-23MF took off 1702 times and spent in the air 1201 hours 44 minutes. Later she was exhibited in Wielichowo near Słupsk.

Here links to sites with her displayed...

Forum PWM • Zobacz temat - Polskie Migi-23 w opłotkach?
Picasa Web Albums - Lukasz Sambor - MiG-23_456_Wi...



The MiG during training flight for landing/ taking off at the highway strip "Kliniska" in 1998.



The pic source: MiG-23 MF, lokalizacja: DOL Kliniska, autor: Wacław Hołyś
 
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Thanks for the info my friend, I didn't know that!
 
Great discussion here and looking good John. I think a little more post shading effect on the bottom, combined with gloss coat, panel wash, decals, and flat coat will make things look just fine.
 
I was told once that the variable geometry in the Mig-23 could only be changed manually whilst on the ground. is there any truth to that?
 
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