Of course, Eduard makes a fine I-16 kit already, I have built one with good results. But I had three of these older Hobbycraft/Academy kits in the stash for some time, which I did not want to simply relegate to the ash heap of history. Can they be brought up to date? Why, yes!
First, I wanted to open up the cockpit area. Here, you can see I ground off the molded closed doors. The aftermarket kit I’m using comes with seperate doors which can be affixed in the open position.
The kit’s molded in exhaust pipes are pretty horrific. Bleah! Let’s just grind those off, too!
Well now that I did that, I’ll need to modify the firewall. If not, it protrudes noticeably into the exhaust pipe ports.
The real plane had these two round portholes above the dash, to allow light in. I had to add my own:
Underneath, I added holes in the wheel wells to accomodate the gear retractor cables.
Now the aftermarket cockpit parts can be installed:
More progress to come soon....
