Lavochkin La-5
Advanced Kit

Clear Prop, 1/72 scale

Reviewed by John Miller

I confess that I’ve long had an interest in Russian aircraft of WWII. By the end of the war, Russia was producing some amazing planes more than a few of which possessed some very pleasing lines. The Yak-3 quickly comes to mind, as do the La-5 and -7. With the release of the beautiful Yak-1 by ARMA and now this LA-5 by Clear Prop, enthusiasts of 1/72 Russian WWII aviation should be pretty pleased. Thanks again to the proprietor of Skyway Models for keeping the Seattle modeling community plied with new kits and draining my retirement account. 

Background

The Lavochkin La-5 was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II that was largely based on the LaGG-3 but replacing the earlier model's inline engine with the much more powerful Shvetsov ASh-82 radial engine. During its time in service, the La-5 was one of the Soviet Air Force's most capable fighters able to meet German designs on an equal footing.

The La-5 was found to have a top speed and acceleration at low altitude that were comparable to Luftwaffe fighters. The La-5FN possessed a slightly higher roll rate than the Bf-109. However, the Bf-109 was slightly faster and had the advantage of a higher rate of climb and better turn rate. The La-5FN had a slightly better climb rate and smaller turn radius than the Fw-190A-8. However, the Fw-190A-8 was faster at all altitudes and had significantly better dive performance and a superior roll-rate. As a result, Lerche's recommendations for Fw-190 pilots were to attempt to draw the La-5FN to higher altitudes, to escape attacks in a dive followed by a high-speed shallow climb, and to avoid prolonged turning engagements. Utilizing MW50 both German fighters had superior performance at all altitudes.

Edited from Wikipedia

In a surprisingly small box adorned with artwork that borders on cartoonish is a jewel of a model aeroplane the likes this reviewer has not often seen. A ”limited production” kit this is not. I continue to marvel at the fidelity of the detail and the crispness of the moldings on the recent release of “little jewels” from this new manufacturer, “Clear Prop” from Ukraine.

The first thing to strike you is the small box, which contains a lot of parts. Second to that is the amazing lack of flash on any of the sprues: awesome. Even the smallest of parts are near devoid of flash making clean up during assembly a breeze.  

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Thumbnail panels:

The surface details are some of the nicest I’ve seen. Of note are the cleanly molded fasteners on the fuselage exhaust plates and the fasteners on the cowl. These details are crisp, scale appropriate, and sufficiently deep to convey a wash following paint leading to a very detailed final finish.

Parts layout and engineering are conventional thus assembly begins with the cockpit. The level of detail here is on par with some 1/48 scale kits-very nice. The main instrument dial faces are on a decal that is sandwiched between the plastic panel and a PE overlay. A PE seat harness accentuates the nicely molded seat complete with cushioned backrest.

In addition to the nicely molded spade grip, cockpit details include detailed rudder bars (with foot straps), a throttle quadrant and multiple side panel levers and trim wheels, most in styrene augmented with PE. The final result will be awesome. Fortunately, parts are provided to pose the canopy open.

The nicely molded Shvetsov M-82 14-cylinder engine is sufficiently detailed given what little will be seen once assembled within the tight fitting cowl. The nose cowl is a single piece with the build seam aligned with an airframe seam: nice.    

The full-span lower wing and upper left and right wing halves have appropriately smooth “wooden” surfaces that are ready for priming with very little prep work.

Both the horizontal stabilizers and elevators are single parts whereas the ruder is comprised of halves. All control surfaces are poseable.

The main gear legs and halved main tires/wheels are nicely molded. The level of detail captured by the photo-etch, upper and lower main gear doors is amazing. Photo-etch oleos are provided for the main gear making for a very scale-appropriate gear assembly. There's even a PE oleo (Part 12) for the nicely molded tail wheel!

The canopy parts are clear, crisply molded with scale-appropriate faming.

Two rear canopy pieces are provided; one each for the closed and open options. This is a very nice option that I wish more manufacturers would follow.

Markings

The decals, by Clear Prop, have good registration and color density.

Airframe stencil data and markings for 3 airframes are provided as follows:

• 240th Fighter Regiment, 287th Fighter Division, Stalingrad area, August 1942.

• 263rd Fighter Regiment, 215th Fighter Division, Leningrad area, Autumn, 1942.

• Unknown unit, Autumn, 1942.

Wowza, this is a very nice model. If this hummer goes together half as well as it looks, it’ll be a winner. That said, with a pretty high parts count, 36 of which are small PE, I suspect this will be a fiddly build requiring some patience. The result, however, will be worth the effort. Keep ‘em coming, Clear Prop!

Highly recommended!

Review kit provided by my retirement fund, again.

For more on this review visit Modelpaintsolutions.com.

Text and Images Copyright © 2020 by John Miller
Page Created 9 July, 2020
Last updated 10 July, 2020

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