MiG-21bis Around the World

Eduard Limited Edition, 1/48 scale

Reviewed by David Couche

MiG-21bis

The ultimate development of the MiG-21, fitted with the Tumanskiy R25-300 turbojet engine and a great number of other advances over previous types. Those MiG-21bis for the Soviet PVO (Air Defence Force) were equipped with the Lazur GCI system (NATO: "Fishbed-L"), while those for the Soviet Air Force were fitted with the Polyot ILS system (NATO: "Fishbed-N"). Just over 2000 of this version were produced by the end of production.

A sturdy Eduard box opens to 7 sprues of grey injected moulded, finely detailed parts with 407 parts on them which enables you build a very nicely detailed model. The actual part count you use is 161 less, due to multi-variant parts still on the sprues, but 246 is still a large parts count.  There is a clear sprue, containing 26 very clear parts of which 13 are for other variants, 3 sheets of  both coloured and brass photo, decals for 7 varied aircraft, and a huge sheets of decals, larger than A4, complete with stencils and the usual comprehensive instruction booklet. All sprues are cleanly moulded with no flash evident, although a few of the parts exhibit some degree of moulding lines and sprue gates to the parts appear to have been created to minimise their effect on the parts. All parts are finely detailed with a mix of raised and recessed panels and details as required.

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Thumbnail panels:

Sprue A

Sprue A is the airframe sprue for the MiG-21bis. The sprue has 18 grey injected moulded parts of which 1 is not used. Found here are the wonderfully detailed fuselages, exhibiting an excellent mix of raised detail where required and fine recessed detail. Also on this sprue are the options for open and closed airbrakes as well as 5 nicely detailed pylons.

Sprue B

Here we have one piece lower wing, the 2 upper wings, tailplanes, rudder, ailerons and lower spine section. Again, beautiful recessed detail on the wings. Sprue B has 11 parts on it and all are used.

Sprue C

This sprue offer up 58 parts, 9 which go unused. This sprue gives us the wheel bays and a number of the cockpit parts. We also have the engine fan, pipes, rear cockpit wall and fuselage walls which will be unseen but stabilise the fuselage pieces. There is some really good raised detailed parts here just waiting for a good paint and wash.

Sprue D

A sprue of some 119 parts with 41 unused, Sprue D has the intake shock cone, exhaust nozzle, undercarriage parts, wheel parts (which won’t be used with a set of Brassin wheels in the kit) and a myriad of small pieces to be added to the airframe.

Sprue E (2 of them)

These sprues offer up 40 parts each, which are the ordinance parts, which enables you to build a great range which includes the following which is actually used by these aircraft;

• 1 x 800L external fuel tank
• 2 x 490L external fuel tank
• 2 x R-60 missiles
• 2 x R-13 missiles
• 2 x R-3R missiles
• 2 x FAB-250 bombs

…… plus a good deal of ordinance not used with these schemes with a total of 21 parts per sprue. These aircraft generally only flew with either of the drop tanks and/or the R-13 or R-60 or R-3R or FAB 250 bombs and missiles. This will certainly boost the quantity in your spares box as well as the quality.  Eduard does give you a typical load out guide for these specific aircraft but also recommends fitting out to your references. There will be plenty of building in assembling and finishing this array.

Sprue F

Well….. Sprue F has a part count of 132 small parts on the sprue but at best, you will only use 48 of these if you build all of the above list of ordinance. This sprue is mainly weapons fins etc. A lot of parts but with a smaller ordinance range to put them on. Put the spares away carefully, along with the sprue E spares.

Sprue G

This sprue is clear sprue and provides 26 clear parts of which 13 are not used and these are canopy pieces for other versions of the MiG-21 as well as an instrument panel and its lower section.

Parts are crystal clear with some nice rivet detail on the frames.

Sprue J

Sprue J has a part count of 29 parts with 5 not used on this model.  This sprue has the tail and spine in 2 halves. Again, lovely detail on these large parts. There are also parts for the intakes ring, the complex pitot tube as well as many aerials that are on the MiG-21bis.

Photo-Etched Frets

There a 3 sheets of photo-etched parts for the Mig-21bis.

The first of these is the pre-painted cockpit set in the Russian turquoise green colour. Included are the cockpit walls and panels for each side, the multi piece instrument panel and a comprehensive set of seatbelts. The only worry here is the ensure you match the paint colour with that bright turquoise green….. a number of brands with this colour out there and all different shades.

The second sheet is a brass sheet. On here we have the wing fences, collector flame rectifier, pitot tube winglets, cannon mouth cover, sheet antennae for the tail, undercarriage extras and static wicks for the wings, tailplanes and tail trailing edges.

The last of these sheets, the smallest one, is the photo-etch set that goes with the Brassin resin wheel set with small brake lines etc.

All up there are 93 etched parts to add to your Mig-21bis. This is a large amount and could cause some modellers some frustrations and even a few stern words to be said.

Instructions

The instructions for the kit are the usual Eduard, with a glossy booklet of 20 A4 pages of high quality detailed instructions, with copious colour call outs throughout, using the Gunze Aqueous, Mr Color as well as the Mission Models range.

Masks and Decals

A full set of masks is included with this kit. A set of wheel masks make that job easier, whilst a full set of masks for the cockpit will certainly help there. There are also masks for various for various fuselage aerials and di-electric panels.

The decals, on a larger than A4 sheet, appear to be in perfect register giving the options for 7 different aircraft.

Included is a comprehensive stencil and data set on the sheet, with a page at the end of the instructions for their placement as well as a page each for the ordinance stencilling and a whole page for the many pylons and drop tanks. Decals appear to be in excellent register. Be prepared for several sessions of decaling to get through this pile of decals. For the stencils alone there is approximately 1000 (yes…. One thousand stencil decals) and most are very small….good luck! I have included a scan of the 7 aircraft profiles but briefly, they are, along with a photo of each;

MiG-21bisD No. 116, Croatian Air Force, Eskadrila borbenih aviona, base Zagreb-Pleso, Croatia, December 2016

MiG-21bis No. 17, Soviet Air Force, 115th Guards Fighter Regiment, Bagram Base, Afghanistan, 1980.

MiG-21bis-SAU No. 1904, Hungarian Air Force, 2nd Fighter Squadron, Base Taszár, Hungary, 1992.

MiG-21MF, Free Libyan Army, Tobruk, Libya, 2016

MiG-21bis No. 0880, Polish Navy, 1st Naval Aviation Squadron, Gdynia-Babie Mines Base, Poland, June 2000.

MiG-21bis-SAU No. 21240, Iraqi Air Force, 47th Squadron, Al-Hurria Base, Iraq, 1990

MiG-21bis No. 637, Cuba Air Force, San Antonio de los Baños base, Cuba, 1990s

As you can see there are photo references for all of these schemes. Many of them with multiple sources. This is always a real bonus to have readily available references.

This kit was originally released in mid-late 2011, making it 9 years old. Many superlatives have been used about this kit over the years and it is still amazing quality and detail. For a non-Soviet modeller, this kit has certainly tempted me to become one. A highly recommended kit set with the great, colourful and interesting schemes supplied.

Thanks to Eduard for the sample

Review Text Copyright © 2020 by David Couche
Page Created 14 May, 2020
Last updated 14 May, 2020

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