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Hi all! Hope everyone is doing well! With the JASDF F-4EJ done, I will now be moving on to my next project. This time, I have decided to build Trumpeter's 1/32 MiG-21UM in the Czech Stress Team's rather eye catching livery. Aftermarket sets for this kit are limited but I will be using the following: CAM KM-1 resin seats Quickboost FOD covers HAD resin wheels Master Model metal pitot tubes Some scratchbuilding in the cockpit and wheel wells will also be required. I'm aware of the kit's shape and dimension issues, however, I'm not sure if I'll be able to fix any of them. But what I find to be the worst part of the kit are the decals. The Czech Air Force insignia colours are in the wrong order and the provided decals for the wings' "wooden" sections aren't even close to my reference photos! I ordered the Tiger Wings decals for the same livery but although the insignia colours are correct the wood effect is still atrocious... Should have done better research before buying these... I came across Ricardo Dacoba's wonderful build of the same model in the FSM Oct 2010 issue and have placed an order for this magazine in hopes of getting more info on how he did the painting on the wings. In the meantime, if anyone can provide more info or advice on the kit I would be most grateful! And a bit of history. In 1955, the then state of Czechoslovakia became a founding member of the Warsaw Pact. Soon after, the MiG-21 entered service with the Czechoslovak Air Force. In 1993, the state was succeeded by the Czech Republic and the MiG-21s were passed on to the newly formed Czech Air Force. Sadly, the livery of choice was short lived as the aircraft crashed in 1998 over the town of České Budějovice due to bad weather. Luckily, there was no loss of life (https://www.key.aero/forum/modern-military-aviation/72459-czech-stress-team). The MiG-21s were eventually replaced by the Swedish SAAB Gripen in 2005 after 43 years of service.

Dear LSP community. I have been lurking around the forum here for a while. Finally I got around to photographing and sharing my first RFI post. This is the Trumpeter 1/32 Scale MiG-21UM in Czech Air Force colors. The model is pretty much out of the box. I had the Verlinden set, but its pretty useless if you ask me. The seats are undersized so I used the photo-etched parts only. The other goodies included Quickboost air scoops and pitot and AOA sensor. The rest is as in the box with the ejection seats heavily modified using all kinds of material. Not 100% accurate but a bit better than in the box version. The markings for this CzAF jet are a combination of kit decals (stencils) my own masks (national Insignia, tail art, serial number) and decals (the little guy on the front) that I had cut and printed locally. The model was "riveted" using RB Productions Rivet-R according to drawings published in the WWP and 4+ publications. Paints Used: ALCLADII, Gunze H, Vallejo, Future and I used Dark wash from Sira Hobby and my own custom mix of oil paints. A word of caution for the MiG-21 experts: I did not modify the shape inaccuracies the kit has. I know they are plentiful, but I just did not have the nerves to do the changes. It does look like a MiG-21UM to me. Yes a sinful approach, and yes I did spend quite some time working on the MiG-21 and other CzAF aircraft but this still did not convince me that the model needed to be modified, as it was a question of forever parking the project to the shelf of doom, or just soldier on and finish the kit as is the best way I can. Photos are a mix of white and black background as I was trying to see what works best, so I apologize for the non-uniformity of the images. Cheers, Jarda Hajecek