SPA Modeler

Although I haven't posted much on here in a the last few months, I haven't been idle. Besides building on my house and yard, I've had 3 projects on my bench. A Tamiya PBR, Academy Sopwith Camel, and this Trumpy MiG-3. The other two I'll post WIP pics as soon as I can, but the MiG is finally finished. Better pics will follow once the weather clears up enough to take some outside.



I ended up painting the markings on, as the decals were a bit too thin for my liking. I figured since I'd end up painting a red base to use them, why not try my hand at masking? Seemed to come out ok.

Thanks for looking

Happy to see you back Joe!

Great build and those red-stars look perfectly shaped and sized!

As the entire build also!

- Kari

Thanks Kari!

With our somewhat mild winters in North Carolina, I try to get all my outdoor building and landscaping projects done. Once May rolls in, the heat and humidity get brutal (to me), fast. Then I just maintain what I have until fall again.

Needless to say, my model building has been accomplished on those few nasty days we get.

I likes it a lot!

Always nice to see a MiG-3! Interesting upper camouflage. Is that the box scheme or a different one.

I wish it was that easy to answer My info comes from a multitude of websites about the V-VS, (Soviet AF), some of which were in Russian that I had a friend of mine translate for me.

A little of both, actually. One of the aircraft the kit decals are for is "white 5", flown by Aleksandr Pokryshkin. The down side is that between the directions and the decals, neither are really accurate. I ended up spending hours, (literally), researching Pokryshkin, what he flew and when. He was a pretty big Soviet ace, so there's a good deal written about him, yet few pics of him in any specific MiG-3. The few that do exist, are the typical oblique front angle pic of him standing on the wing, entering the cockpit, standing by the prop, etc... My assumption is propaganda for the war effort. Armed with these few pics, it gets even trickier.

Since the MiG-3 is a combination of wood and metal, originally the factory would paint primer on the metal, then shoot the whole thing with the same green you see on mine. After a short period of time, the paint on the wood would take on a different shade as it cured and weathered. To add insult to injury, depending on what got worked on, or who the mechanic was, the craft might get some black painted on it. Or darker green, or just be spot painted. Traditionally we see the black on green over light blue MiGs, but I found that scheme was based on a black and white photo where it was assumed the darker patches were black.

Now to open Pandora's box a bit more--Most Soviet aircraft were just given a number. However, each unit could have a "white 5", or "red 5" or any other number/color combination. Plus, if the aircraft were painted in winter whitewash, "white 5" could temporarily become "red 5".

Don't even get me started on how many different MiG-3's Pokryshkin flew.........

This scheme, (from what I could determine), is accurate for Pokryshkin in the early stages of Barbarossa, just prior to being banged up.