Eduard's 1/48 scale ProfiPack
Yak-3

by Paolo Solamito

Eduard's 1/48 scale Yak-3 is available online from Squadron.com

The Yak-3 was the ultimate evolution of the family of fighters designed by Yakovlev Design Bureau that started with the I-26 (Yak-1). It was also one of the best Soviet fighters of WWII.

Eduard has captured the shape of the plane quite accurately.

Although I am not one to complain about a couple of millimeters, I was surprised when comparing the wing span of the kit against a drawing in Bock's volume (sheet 9) to discover that Eduard's wing was apparently too narrow... but in my opinion the scale drawing is wrong because according to various sources (Bock's included) the wing span of the plane is 9.2 metres ie 19.16 cm in 1/48 and not 19.6 cm as results measuring the drawing.

So Eduard was more accurate because the kit's wingspan is 19 cm.

The Profipack box contains plastic parts, a photo-etcheded fret, resin wheels, paint masks and a decal sheet.

Construction of the model started with the cockpit and proceeded without particular problems and so we, me and my brother Bruno, decided to add some details in lacking areas such as:

• thin copper wire to the control column,

• fuel level (thanks to http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/)  and gear-down indicators on the wings,

• reinforcements in the main gear bays,

• the louvre of the radiator was opened and its actuators added,

• various holes drilled (exhausts...),

• tiny wall in the wing root intakes,

• various parts such as the wire antenna.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

The greatest difficulty in building this kit are the photoetched actuators of the main gear doors which are extremely thin and difficult to bend and glue in their proper position.

The plane we chose to represent is that of General Zakharov as seen in Erik Pilawskii's book with a red, instead of blue, badge and a red star on the spinner.

I scanned Eduard's decal and replaced the light blue with red and printed it with my inkjet. After that I removed the red outline from the arrows and the stars from Eduard's sheet, again following Pilawskii's interpretation of Zakharov's plane.

The red star on the spinner was painted using a mask present in Eduard's box Yak-3 "Red Devils" and from the same source came the white decal to outline it. Working with decals (printing and cutting them) is boring and difficult but at least I have what I think is an historically correct model of this beautiful plane.

A last word on the painting stage: we used the excellent White Ensign enamels which have a satin finish and a problem only in the long drying time; sometimes (or, I should say, very often) choosing the right colour for Soviet WWII planes is difficult, particularly with interior parts like gear bay/legs and cockpit for which we again choosed to follow Pilawskii book.

Ciao.

Sources:

• Soviet Air Force Fighter Colours 1941-1945, Erik Pilawskii

• Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War vol.1, Yefim Gordon and Dmitri Khazanov

• Yak-1 Yak-3, Robert Bock.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Soviet Aces of World War 2 Modelling Manuals 17   Author: Hugh Morgan Illustrator: John Weal US Price: $17.95 UK Price: £12.99 Publisher: Osprey Publishing Publish Date: October 15, 1997 Details: 96 pages; ISBN: 1855326329 Shop Buy it from Osprey Publishing

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2005 by Paolo Solamito
Page Created 10 May, 2005
Last Updated 10 May, 2005

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