Trumpeter MiG-21UM

By Rick Cotton

Those of us who do 1/32 cannot help but be excited about the new stuff suddenly dropping out of the sky like so many Christmas presents...Warthogs, Hunters, accurate 109s and Zeros, and MiGs galore. The Trumpeter series started out as somewhat simplified MiG-15s and 17s, but whoa, look at the 21's coming out now! When I picked up the Two-hole version and opened it...woo-hoo!

I won't elaborate on previous reviews, I'll just add my observations as I go along. Suffice it to say that the Trumpeter MiG-21s render the Revell kits to "gate guardian" status. Sorry, Revell...

Construction started, naturally enough, with the cockpit. Since no one seems to think us two-holer builders want resin cockpit sets, I had to use the kit tub and panels, which are NOT BAD. Just be sure to test fit everything, as you need to file a bit off the bottom of the instrument panel pedestals to get them to fit. I painted mine in Testor's Russian Interior Blue Green, with the appropriate blacks, grays, reds, silvers, etc., per my references. I added spares box canopy details galore, and posed the backseater's periscope mirror in the up position. The kit seats are OK, but I chose to use two of the excellent Cutting Edge KM-1 resin seats. The seats also came with very nice control sticks as well, so I used them also. Oddly, Trumpeter molded the throttle handles to the cockpit sidewalls, and the pedestals to the tub, so when assembled, they line up over each other. Oh, well.

Prior to assembling the fuselage, I built the wheel wells and sprayed them in Metallizer Stainless Steel, with black rubber fuel lines. Photos of actual MiGs seem to show in-service MiGs with unpainted metal wells, while privately-owned restored models seem to have been universally sprayed in sky blue, or Interior green, or who knows what. Before you close the front fuselage, MAKE SURE you have filed enough off the supports for the metal nose cone to fit properly. Mine were a touch long, and I had to file a bit to get the halves to close tightly. There are also 4 plastic tabs to install in the fuselage to hold the wing assemblies.The front ones will have to be filed a bit on their undersides to get the wings to line up properly with the small strakes on the fuselage side.

Why Trumpeter decided to mold the engine in 4 quarters, I don't know. Maybe the decision makers were away helping judge the figure skating in Salt Lake or something. I stuck mine together anyway, because you must do so to get the tail cone to line up properly in the end of the fuselage. The back end of the fuselage closed up pretty well. No swearing or hair-pulling, and very little Tamiya putty.

Fit of the wings to the fuselage was less than average, with large gaps. Putty and plastic shims eased the fit, while I covered the recessed rivet detail with masking tape.

The Mongol is a simple bird, without a ton of plumbing visible in the wheel well, and simplified brake lines on all three struts. All of this was simulated with thread painted the various colors of black, gray and brown, per my photographs.

Trumpeter does not supply Federal Standard color numbers, so you are on your own. The struts were painted with Testors' flat Sky Blue, which looks about right according to some of my photos. The camouflage was a pure SWAG (scientific wild-assed guess), but I think I got it right...Polly S French Earth Brown #505240 and a few drops of flat white for the base tan color, Testor's Euro 1 Dark Green 34092 with a few drops of dark blue for the green...Testors Flint Gray 36314 with a few drops of white for the gray on the bottom, which looks much darker in my photos than the box art on the side of the kit.

What Trumpeter DOES supply are complete stencils for either the Czech or the Finnish birds...hundreds of them! They are all readable,but I speak neither Czech nor Finnish, so I don't know if they are correct. They looked good, so after applying two coats of Future, I used all of the Czech ones……..took me 4 nights to apply them, but I used them all. After applying all the decals, another coat of Future and several coats of Testors' Acrylic Clear Flat sealed the decals permanently. A dirty brown wash on top and a grayish one underneath, some hydraulic fluid stains, some pastel chalk simulated paint fading and a tiny bit of silver chipping finished the look of a used, "everyday" trainer.

Sometime after this, I happened to come across Dave Williams' review of this kit on Hyperscale, and read about the incorrect directions on the Czech insignia. Well, shoot, darn, and other salty expressions...but, no use crying over spilled jet fuel. When I find some correct ones, I'll try to overlay them at a later date.

Happy modelling!

© Rick Cotton

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This article was published on Wednesday, July 20 2011; Last modified on Sunday, October 02 2016