Bell P-39Q Airacobra in Soviet service [1:32 Kitty Hawk]

[Alex]

So despite having read the cautionary tales penned by several folks (including Kevin Futter) about this kit, I'm going to attempt one of these:

For "Target for Today".

 

But WAIT, you say, everyone knows it's a myth that the Soviets used Lend/Lease Airacobras as ground attack planes!  And yes, there was definitely at one time a misperception that, owing to the poor high-altitude performance of the single-stage-supercharged Allison V-12 that these planes got stuck with, the Red Army Air Force relegated them exclusively to ground attack missions where high altitude performance wouldn't matter.  In fact, the Soviets used the P-39 as a legit air superiority fighter, especially in the early phases of the war on the Eastern Front.  The key aspect of this was that they needed to establish air superiority to interdict German ground attack sorties against their armor and infantry columns, supply trucking, etc, not against high-altitude bombing missions. So it was a low-altitude affair where the P-39's poor performance above 15,000 feet didn't really matter, while its agility (in the hands of a skilled pilot) and fairly over-the-top armament (the original flying gun platform) mattered a lot.

 

However, Soviet Airacobra pilots (operating at low altitudes) would certainly take opportunities for strafing attacks when they presented themselves.  And, once the tide began to turn on the Eastern Front, and the Red Army began its drive towards eventual victory over the Nazis in Berlin, VVS units were increasingly tasked with dedicated ground-attack sorties against German locomotives, airfields, supply convoys, etc.  For these missions they were often equipped with general-purpose bombs like the FAB-50SCh, which is probably the bomb that we see this ground crewman mounting:

 

That photo is from this excellent book:

 

And if you want to read about the munitions used by the VVS in the Great Patriotic War, this website (sadly no longer under development, but at least it's still on line) has some good stuff: http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/Research/Ordnance/FAB50/index.php

 

So to make sure I toe the line for this GB, I'm doing a late-model (P-39Q) Airacobra from a VVS squadron operating in Germany in 1945, and it will carry that FAB-50 bomb (which despite its name actually weighed 65 kilos by the time it got to the late version I will represent).

[Alex]

One of my GB goals for this year was to, as much as possible, burn down my stash rather than buying new kits to fit the themes.  I've had this kit for a couple of years, and upon opening the box I found that I has accumulated quite a bit of AM for it:

 

Per usual, I anticipate picking and choosing from the Eduard exterior sets based on which parts of the kit really seem to need enhancement.  The rest of the stuff I'll definitely use (except for the seatbelts, which I bought before I had discovered good AM seatbelts).

[Alex]

The kit provides four BIG sprues of tan plastic parts.

 

There's plenty of surface detail, and some of it is not too over-scale, but there's also LOTS of flash and lots of big towers of plastic on the backs of the parts associated with the ejector pin locations.  In the little bit of work I did today it became obvious that there was going to be a lot of parts-prep to do.  Some (many) of the locator pin holes are undersized and need to be drilled out.  Overall impression is if a small short-run shop like A-Model decided on a real stretch goal and tried to make a Tamiya-complexity kit.

[Alex]

One thing I'll need to sort out is armament.  The kit provides a bomb and mounting hardware/sway brackets, but it's a US 500-lb bomb, which in is obviously much larger than the Soviet FAB-50.  What I'm going to do it get one of these Eduard 1:48 resin sets of the same US 500-lb bomb:

 

 

In quarter-scale the US 500-pounder will be only 0.4 mm too large in diameter to be a 1:32 FAB-50, which is a discrepancy I can live with.  Since the fins on this one are resin, rather than the brass PE you sometimes get, I think I should be able to modify them (and the bomb casing) to produce something closer to this:

 

It won't be exact, but I think it will get the idea across.  Better than anything I could try to make completely from scratch.  And the Eduard set includes two bombs, so I'll have a backup after I screw up the first one.

 

I'll definitely need to make the mounting hardware completely from scratch, but that shouldn't be hard.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Alex

[Alain Gadbois]

Great project and that's quite a boxfull of AM!

Nice to do a Soviet P-39 as they liked the airplane and really used it to it's full potential.

 

Alain

[Dpgsbody55]

Nice.  I built one of these a year or two ago for the Russian Front GB.  It's a great model and I enjoyed it so much I bought another.  You'll need a bit of lead to keep it on it's nose wheel, but despite the weight of mine, it's still standing well on it's plastic undercarriage.  Just watch the fit of the instrument panel as it can interfere with the fit of the canopy.  Also be careful of the fit of some of the ammo boxes as they may interfere with the fitment of the top of the forward fuselage.  I attached the fuselage forward end to the main fuselage before doing anything else and used this to check the fit at every stage.

 

Looking forward to see how yours progresses. 

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[dennismcc]

As a big VVS fan I will follow this with interest, a Soviet P-39 is on my long build list, I have the kit, decals and references all ready.

I do not know if you have already perused Massimo's site but it is a treasure trove of information.

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/mig3/mig3.html

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php?board=50.0

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Alex]

3 hours ago, Dpgsbody55 said:

Nice.  I built one of these a year or two ago for the Russian Front GB.  It's a great model and I enjoyed it so much I bought another.  You'll need a bit of lead to keep it on it's nose wheel, but despite the weight of mine, it's still standing well on it's plastic undercarriage.  Just watch the fit of the instrument panel as it can interfere with the fit of the canopy.  Also be careful of the fit of some of the ammo boxes as they may interfere with the fitment of the top of the forward fuselage.  I attached the fuselage forward end to the main fuselage before doing anything else and used this to check the fit at every stage.

 

Looking forward to see how yours progresses. 

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Thanks for the heads up Michael!  I am going to be dry-fitting religiously on this one, especially since I plan to add a bunch of details to the interior spaces, giving me all the more opportunity to make stuff not fit right...

[Alex]

15 minutes ago, dennismcc said:

As a big VVS fan I will follow this with interest, a Soviet P-39 is on my long build list, I have the kit, decals and references all ready.

I do not know if you have already perused Massimo's site but it is a treasure trove of information.

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/mig3/mig3.html

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php?board=50.0

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Thanks Dennis!  I have not looked at his website but now I will.

[Alex]

On 6/3/2021 at 5:01 AM, dennismcc said:

As a big VVS fan I will follow this with interest, a Soviet P-39 is on my long build list, I have the kit, decals and references all ready.

I do not know if you have already perused Massimo's site but it is a treasure trove of information.

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/pages/mig3/mig3.html

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php

http://massimotessitori.altervista.org/sovietwarplanes/board/index.php?board=50.0

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

This is excellent stuff - thanks for pointing it out!

[Alex]

So on with some actual modeling.  Breaking (very slightly) with tradition, this kit does NOT have you start out by building the cockpit - first up is the engine.  There was apparently a paper shortage when this kit was designed, because they've gone to great pains to condense a lot of stuff onto each sheet of the brief instruction booklet.  This is step 1, and they get denser and less clear later:

 

First up I'll need to modify the cylinder heads to work with the Eduard resin exhausts (because no way am I cleaning flash off of 24 little half-exhaust-stub pieces, gluing them together, and then trying to get rid of the seams - see lower right corner of page).

 

Sawed the base block off of each side's exhaust and then scraped/sanded the back flat.

 

 

The heads have the exhaust flanges molded in - these plus an extra millimeter or so need to be shaved away to let in the base strip of the resin piece.

 

That looks messy but you won't see it when the resin exhaust is glued on.

 

Like this (ish)

 

One thing that I will need to decide on is how much scratch detailing makes sense on this engine.  Even if you leave the engine side cover off (as the kit permits and I intend), there's limited visibility.  I did a quick dry fit to look at this:

 

Anything on top of the engine (intake manifolds, ignition harness) will be blocked by the cockpit rear deck above it.  And while you will be able to see the hardware on the back of the block (supercharger, carb, magnetos), all of the complex control linkages that I tried to build for my P-51 sit even behind that.  If you chose to cut out that triangular section of fuselage behind the existing opening (which in reality came off with dzus fasteners and was often opened for service), you could show ALL of that very clearly.  But I'm not going to do that.  So I probably won't add a ton of stuff.  I was able to get hold of a PDF copy of the P-39 Erection and Maintenance manual, so I need to run through that carefully and figure out exactly what can be added in places where it will be visible.  My current thinking is to open up the starboard side of the model as much as possible (MG/cannon bay, engine bay, oil reservoir bay - everything the kit gives you the option for), and to have the starboard cockpit door open, since this was the usual side for ingress/egress.  And the port side will be completely closed, to provide the "streamlined" view of the aircraft.

 

After cleaning flash off of every single part (this is going to be patience-intensive I can already tell), here are all the bits that go into making that familiar Allison V-12.

 

And painted up.  The former gearhead in me couldn't resist making the valve covers extra shiny (although they will ultimately be matte-coated).

[dennismcc]

This is going to be a classic, great start.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[themongoose]

Love it, solid logic there. As a fellow gearhead you had me laughing on that last pic!

[Dpgsbody55]

Found this on You Tube recently.  A bit of inspiration for you, I hope.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-bFbNrkm4Q

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Alex]

On 6/12/2021 at 12:57 AM, Dpgsbody55 said:

Found this on You Tube recently.  A bit of inspiration for you, I hope.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-bFbNrkm4Q

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

That’s excellent - thanks for sharing