The internet is a wasteland. Does anyone out there have a book or something that tells them the interior colour for the wheel bays, and interior colour of the dive brakes?? Specifically for MigF13 variants.

What I've seen seems to indicate pale blue inside the wheel bays, with light grey struts and bright green wheels. The insides of the dive brakes remain a total mystery to me.

Ray firstly I'm no expert but looking at the 'Warpaint Mig-21' book the gear bays on a Mig-21F-13 appear to be a greenish grey almost RLM02 with black compressed air bottle (outer) and blue oxygen bottle (inner). The bottles are those ball shaped parts in the kit that fit in the gear bays. It's hard to tell but on some at least the fuselage part of the gear bays are natural metal as well as the inside of the doors. The airbrakes appear to follow the same convention but the book has no photos of them open on an Mig-21F-13, a later Mig-21bis shows that they are the same colour as the underside, that's the bay and inside of the brake.

Just to say I brought the book as I had the same questions as you but I've also got a pile of Mig-21's in the stash.

Hope that helps

i'm not an expert either but Modelmaster has a color called USSR interior blue/green.

Could be helpfull

The keyword here seems to be 'variation.' I've found several walkarounds online, but as always with museum planes, it's very possible they don't display the original colors anymore.

- Iraqi MiG-21F-13 (apparently in an Israeli museum)
Looks repainted all over, note the uniformity of the wheel wells' color for example.
- Quite worn Russian MiG-21F-13 in an outdoors museum
Again, I'm not sure about the exterior colors' authenticity, but the wheel well could very well be in the original colors, as the components, wiring, etc. show different colors.
- A ****load of good MiG-21 pictures at Britmodeller.com
The yellowish (protective, anti-corrosion?) coating in the wheel wells of the Belgrade museum F-13 looks to be the same as those in the pictures of Finnis Air Force MiG-21F-13s I've come across. Some have both the wheel well and the insides of the inner main gear doors painted this way, while some had the gear doors in a metallic color. I replicated the coating in a model I built by spraying a transparent coat of greenish-yellowish color over aluminium/silver metallic base coat.
Also note the turqoise cockpit interior color on the F-13, which is not original - F-13s mostly had light blue grey cockpits.
One more thing. Even though MiG-21BIS isn't what you're looking references for, I have to add a caveat. This particular aircraft was repainted a few years ago and placed on a sightseeing terrace of an electronics store, and the newly painted exterior colors are pretty good, but could be more authenthic. The landing gear and the gear doors seem to be repainted as well, but the gear wells themselves seem untouched by whoever did the repainting.

As for the air brakes, pictures of them open seem to be harder to find, but here's a couple of links:
- UFM walkaround
- FAF MiG-21F-13 "MG-92"
In addition, I have a copy of an IPMS Finland magazine covering the MiG-21F-13. The couple of photos there is of opened air brakes are black & white so they don't help that much, but the text says the insides of the air brakes are "light silver grey/natural metal."

Hope this helps.

From what i've seen on my trips to eastern europe, i would say the early Mig-21's were delivered with the wheel wells and airbrake interiors painted in a protective metalic yellowish buff colour. You could use Tamiya X-31 for this mixed with a few drips of XF60 (dark yellow). After overhauls it depends greatly on the user. On uncamouflaged machines these areas usualy got the same protective flat aluminium finnish protective coat as the rest of the aircraft. The wheelwells on camouflaged aircraft often had the underside colour. Please note that these early mig-21's had dark grey cockpits (similar to modelmaster 2094 schwarzgrau)and not the later "turquoise" colour. As an aside: this turquoise colour isn't a single standard colour either.
I've seen hues ranging from light blue to green and anything inbetween. In the cockpit of an NVA Mig-21PFM i found the folowing layers of paint: top coat grey (similar to british sea grey),turquoise (greenish hue), turquise (more blueish than the previos layer) and finaly a zinc chromate primer.

I've seen many colors in mig 21 wheel wells, but a light gray seems to be as common as anything else. I can't comment confidently on early migs, but i'll totally buy the yellowish coating arguments as i have seen that at least on the fuselage part of the wheel well of a later Mig-21 variant. occasionally different sections of the wheels wells have different colors.

basically i don't think there is a single correct answer for this, and no one can really tell you you are wrong except on a particular aircraft that has good reference photos.

that turquoise blue color is for cockpits only BTW.

Ray the 'Warpaint' book shows colour photo's of an early cockpit which is light grey with black instrument panel, then another with light blue with black IP then another turquoise with black IP then finally one which is all turquoise so take your pick.

This is one of those answers that comes with a lot of "DEPENDS" attached.

First off, where was the aircraft built - was it a original Soviet/Russian aircraft, was it Czech built, was it Chinese built? As that will have an impact on what primer colors would be used.

Generally speaking - the early, so called "first generation" MiG-21s were quite different from their MiG-21P ("second generation") and later descendents.

For Russian aircraft, the cockpits would tend to be dark gray with black panels and consoles. Similar, in many respects to earlier MiGs (15/17/19). The gear colors and primer would have been similar to the dark gray color of the cockpit (think medium gray or intermediate blue in FS parlance).

The "jade" green cockpit color didn't come in until the MiG-21S family.

The RLM02 green-gray primer color that seems to be common for most of the later MiGs started a little earlier - so I sure wouldn't tell you that you're wrong if you used that for a MiG-21F....

I have less specifics on Czech and Chinese built examples, but a little extra research should turn up the answers on these if you determine that what you're building could be of that origin.

NOW, all of this said, remember, there is FAR less struture and FAR less consistency in Russian/Soviet paint standards, so to say that everything was the same color would be a massive falicy. Find something that's in the ballpark (okay, so don't paint it lavender), and I challenge somebody to tell you that you're wrong - unless they were the crew chief on that particular "serial number."

Remember that as each country maintained the aircraft, things could change with their own maintenance standards, etc.

I am working with the staff here on Kitmaker on building a new repository for Russian/Soviet modelers, so look for more information and some announcements on that front in the near future!

HTH!

BTW - the best reference on the subject - from a modeling perspective is the 4+ Publication dedicated to the MiG-21F/U - it shows both Czech and Russian built examples.

The MiG-21F variants that you see with the green cockpit tend to be the MiG-21FR which is the designation for the Czech built examples.

So hopefully that provides a little extra insight...

Okay so my plan of attack is an severely lightened rlm02 in the wheel bays. Bare oxidised aluminium on the inside underside of the wings. Gold ish on the inside of air brakes, pale grey struts with green wheels, and I can't help it I have to have a turquoise cockpit. If that means I have to do a Czech example so be it. Where were the Finnish ones built?

Follow up question, is there a particular colour the insides of the flaps should be for an FR??

I presume F-13s of the FAF were Russian-built; all pictures I've seen show light blue grey cockpit interiors.

Here's what I've settled on:





Still early days but you get the idea. Thanks for all the help guys.