I break the habit of (almost) a lifetime and tackle a reasonably modern jet - Eduard's excellent quarterscale MiG-21.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Hello,

Nice Built, Sir...!

Considering you haven't got lot of practice on Jets... You can "translate" your knowledge much better like me...!

Cheers

Hi Rowan,

Excellent work, congratulations! I think the build should also be published as a feature on the front page...

What's next on the bench?

Jean-Luc

Hi Diego and Jean-Luc

Thank you for your kind words - they're very much appreciated!

A Feature? - I'm sure everyone's had quite enough of my dabble into the world of jets after the Mysterious MiG's campaign and this review.

What's next? - WNW's Albatros and Silver Wings' Flycatcher. They could hardly be more different from the MiG-21!

All the best

Rowan

Thanks Eduard for this superb model. It's the best they ever did and they did their job very well, the MIG-21 is really good researched..however,ther is one thing not right i found while i researched the airplane:

My choise to build is the white "14", which was part of the 234 IAP - This variant is a MT (one of those only 15 produced).
There is one interesting thing about the MT and SMT:

The exterior of the MTs and SMTs are the same. There are some disputes about the panel on the dorsal bulge,which on MTs have a "glass window" to look into it,which isn't there on some of known SMTs. But it looks like ALL of the SMTs and MTs have this transparent window installed - On some of the known SMT this window was closed belatedly by the maintenance team. So additionaly you have to paint that little area in a dark tone to present the window,if you want.
Here you have a picture of it:


It looks like the only visible exterior differences are the numbers of the serialnumber:
SMT: 50XXXXX (Production Type 50)
MT: 96XXXXX (Production Type 96B)

But....
Acutally the MTs and SMTs have completely different cockpits panels.
MT's cockpit is almost a copy of the MF cockpit - Eduard's etched-cockpit looks good here, but the SMT has it´s differences.
Here you better go with the MT decal schemes of those only 15 exemplares built.

A little history of the 15 built MT's (12 оf them were in service in the Soviet Airforce):

1) Delivered factory-fresh to 234 IAP (Guardian Fighter Regiment) in Kubinka/Russia for 1 -1 1/2 years
2) Moved to 296 APIB (Fighter Bomber Regiment) in Altenburg-Nobitz /Germany
3) Moved to 66 APIB Veshevo/ Russia
4) Some finally landet for the rest of their pension life in Ledovo/Russia (The "11", "15" and "14") as you see on the picture above.


Additionaly to say:
The MT is known as some kind of a construction failure due to it's flight instability and some issues while pulling the gear down because of the heavy bulge, but..
One pilot,who flew it told on the web,that the MT wasn´t that bad and it had a loss of preformance of only 3-5% (like fully armored BIS),maybe it wasn´t that good for the fighter regiments, but it was good enough for the fighter-bomber regiments.



Eduard,bring us more Mig-21s!

the model kit Eduard has engineered is great... i do however have issue with the Brassin cockpit they have created for their mig-21 series...... the resin Tub at first looks amazing.... but when you start building it, and add in the little PE parts that are pre printed.... it begins to look very sloppy..... Honestly i think the Aires and Black Box cockpits do a much better job of pulling off the very unique mig-21 cockpit.... their are alot of toggle switches that arent represented by PE very well,.,... I have never been a fan of preprinting PE.... I think its cheating,... and it doesnt look nearly as good as paint and decals.... aside from that... the other Brassin stuff is great for Eduards line of mig -21's