For a time in the early 1950s, the Soviet Union’s MiG-15 was the best high-performance fighter in the sky. Its startling appearance in the Korean War is legend.
Eduard’s MiG-15bis (second) features optional photoetched-metal interior pieces, masks for the clear parts, a posable canopy, and optional parts for some of the variants. There are markings for five aircraft: Cuban, East German, Egyptian, and two Soviet.
In the cockpit, you have a choice of plastic pieces and decals or photoetched-metal pieces; I chose the latter, gluing them down with Microscale Micro Metal Foil Adhesive. It was hard to hold onto the throttle quadrant, let alone glue it in place. The cockpit and pilot seat are painted ocean gray; likewise, the intake ducts were painted aluminum and installed on either side of the cockpit.
I dry-fitted the fuselage halves and wings, looking for fit issues, and only had small gaps at the wing roots. But with the cockpit, the front of the fuselage was noticeably spread. I had to sand off a raised portion on the left half of the inside of the fuselage, along with the edges of the duct work, for a better fit.
After assembling the wings, I painted their wide wing walks flat black; the control surfaces are painted with Testors stainless steel. I did this to the tail as well. Opening up the locator holes produced a better fit between the wing root and the fuselage.
With that well-detailed cockpit, and the parts I needed to do it, I decided to have the canopy open. A tab on the bottom of Part No. B12 makes for a secure glue joint to fix the canopy in the open position.
I painted the model with decanted Tamiya silver leaf, Tamiya ocean gray, and Gunze Sangyo red (No. 22 ) and flat black, using Tamiya tape to mask the red portion of the nose. The wheel wells were lightly weathered with an artist’s oil wash.
My reference for this kit was Mikojan Gurievitch MiG-15, by Dariusz Karnas (Mushroom, ISBN 978-83-89450-05-0). I chose decals for the markings of Korean War ace Col. Yevgeny Pepelyayev of the Soviet air force.
It took me 15 hours to build and finish this kit. Make sure you look over which air force version you are making; there are optional parts to substitute to make the correct version. With so many air forces flying this aircraft, the modeling possibilities are diverse. Extra bombs and racks in the kit are a sign of more versions to come.
Note: A version of this review appeared in the September 2014 FineScale Modeler.