Introduction

Italeri’s MiG-27 has a few years under its belt and in some parts it shows. The cockpit is basic and needs detail added. Eduard’s interior set for this kit, not only adds to it, but replaces near enough the whole interior. The only parts that are needed are the seat, which gets pretty much covered with photo etch, and the control column. The cockpit floor, which in the kit doubles as the nose gear bay, does need to be used, but Eduard don’t show this part in the instructions.

In the bag

Eduard’s interior set comes in the standard re-sealable bag, and contains two brass frets and one clear acetate sheet.
One of the frets is pre-coloured and self adhesive, whilst the other fret is your standard unpainted, not adhesive fret.
The coloured fret contains the instrument panel, seat harnesses, seat cushions, side instrument panels, foot pedals, HUD and various small parts for the seat, instrument panels and the canopy mechanism.
The unpainted fret holds most of the larger interior parts for the cockpit tub, ejection seat sides and the canopy framing.
The clear acetate sheet holds the clear part for the HUD, two are supplied so you have a spare.

Sticking it all together

The build starts with the ejection seat with removing the moulded on harness from the seat, and cutting the back of the seat off, to which a P.E part raises the height of the seat. A seat cushion and back rest cushion are then placed on the seat, before adding the multiple part harnesses. All of these parts are pre coloured. They are also S.A, but I have found that although the larger parts do stick very well, the smaller parts do need a little glue.
The bang seat is finished off with the multi part seat sides (which need painting) and the ejection handle and seat levers.
The next part of the build requires the cutting out of the moulded on HUD and the back cockpit plate from the nose/cockpit section off the plastic kit parts.
Now we return to the construction of the cockpit, with the tub. The main parts of the tub have to be painted, which does mean trying to match the pre-painted parts which are a Soviet blue/green colour. The Eduard tub is a two piece affair, and the parts have been scored for bending, so getting the correct shape is easy. The first part is the floor and the sides, which needs to be bent in seven places. The rear cockpit plate also needs to be attached, which is a one piece part that needs bending in half to give it some thickness and makes it quite ridged.
The pre coloured side instrument panels are bent and placed on the tub sides. The pre glued parts stick well as they are quite large, but a few small parts that go onto the panels need a little glue to keep them in position.
The main instrument panel is made up of several parts, which include the new HUD.
The instrument dials are a two part piece with the dial gauges on one sheet and the facings on another sheet and then glued to the front. A few small parts are needed to complete the instrument panel, one of which on my built part has managed to fall off and get eaten by the carpet monster, just before I took the photos.
The HUD needs to be fixed to the top of the panel after you have installed the cockpit into the fuselage halves.
Speaking of which the fit of the cockpit is very tight and the instrument panel is a bit of a pain to fit under the fuselage hood, so care needs to be taken, and possibly several pairs of hands.
The cockpit also comes with the rudder pedals as P.E, but mine have not been fitted as yet, until I have got the cockpit and instrument panel glued into position in one side of the fuselage halves.
The last part of the build is new parts for the canopy framing and the locking mechanism for the canopy. These parts are very easy to fit, with about half the parts pre-painted.

Instructions

The instructions are printed on a A4 size sheet of paper folded in half.
The build sequence is in the black on white drawings we all love and know, with markers given for replacing, removing and bending certain parts during the build.
The instructions are clear and easy to read, but no internal colours are given for the unpainted parts, so checking with the kits instructions and a bit of reference work is required.

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