History

Possessing both excellent performance and being easy to maintain, the rugged MiG-17 was produced in large numbers and became the standard Warsaw Pact fighter from the mid 1950s and for the next decade, with aircraft produced under licence in both China and Poland. An extremely cost effective aircraft, it was an attractive fighter option for many of the world’s smaller air forces and more than thirty overseas nations would eventually operate the type.

In the bag

Airfix's new tool 1/72nd MiG-17F, reviewed here, is pretty detailed out of the box, but some areas could do with a helping hand, and Eduard have released a upgrade set which address's some of the less detailed parts.

Eduard’s update set for Airfix’s MiG-17 is contained on two frets, one pre coloured, and a larger fret the normal brass colour, packed into the familiar clear sleeve bag. A set of instructions sandwiched between two cardboard inserts is also supplied.

The coloured fret holds parts to replace the instrument panel, which is a two part P.E and uses the plastic instrument panel has the base.
The kits part is blank and uses a decals for the dials, so the Eduard set really does improve this area.
The side walls of the cockpit also get some P.E to replace the decals and enhance some details.

The seat gets a nice pre coloured harness and two new foot rests. The moulded on foot rests need to be removed, but this doesn't look very difficult to do.

The canopy gets some internal framework which sits at the rear of the canopy. A small film fits into the middle of the framework.
The rear shelf of the cockpit also gets some etch, as the kit has no detail in this part.

The plain fret covers mainly the external parts.
The exhaust gets an afterburner ring which is not present in the base kit, but this will be only seen if you look down the exhaust tube, but you will know its there lol.

The nose bay gets some photo etch with some rivet detail for the internal walls, but they are small, and probably near enough invisible by the time you close the fuselage up.

All the gear doors are replaced with photo etch. These need to be folded to give a bit of thickness, and have near enough the same detail as the kits doors, although they are thinner.

Now the hardest part of this set is the landing flaps. The kit doesn't have any, so some surgery to the lower wings needs to be done to install them.
The lower wing portion of the flaps needs to be removed, and Eduard show where the cuts should be made.
The flaps are a four part affair each.
Once the plastic lower wing flap is removed and the two wing halves are glued together the internal section of the flap can be fitted straight into the wing section. The lowered flap is installed once the edges are folded 90 degrees. Two hinges connect the lowered flap to the internal part.

Instructions

The instructions are printed on an A4 size sheet with the build taking place over the front and half the back page.
Any parts that need replacing are clearly marked with a symbol, and any parts that need surgery are highlighted in red. Glue points are colored in blue for any photo etch that needs attaching to the plastic parts.
No colours are given for any of the parts.