Sovietwarplanes

Just announced at toy fair in Nuremberg, here are the test shots:

http://ipmsdeutschland.de/Ausstellungen/Nuernberg2008/Nuernberg2008_AT/slides/Academy_Il-2_72.html
http://ipmsdeutschland.de/Ausstellungen/Nuernberg2008/Nuernberg2008_AT/slides/Academy_Il-2_72.html

Cheers
Libor

I wonder what will it be in comparison with Dako and Eduard kits in terms of accuracy ??? ::)

If the rumours are correct, and this is the "lost" Accurate Miniatures 1/72 Il-2 finally being produced, then it will probably be just as accurate or inaccurate as the AM 1/48 Il-2. The molds for both kits were supposedly made by the same company in Korea for AM; the 1/48 kit was produced, but the 1/72 kit never made it, and the molds have been closely held by their maker ever since. The molds are in Korea; Academy is in Korea; maybe...? ;)

But then what *is* accuracy, anyway? There are those who say that all existing Il-2 drawings are inaccurate - Erik Pilawskii from the hobbyvista VVS site is supposed to be working on a CD of new drawings which will be as correct as possible. Maybe when this project is finished, we will know!

John

Check it out, courtesy of Brendan, on the hobbyvista forum:
http://www.academy.co.kr/eng/ssCartimate/itemDetail.jsp?cid=0&iid=381&orderBy=iid%20DESC&imgMode=N#

Nice!

John

The kit is now in stock at Model Hobbies and at Hannants - Hannants' weekly "Hot News" e-mail says, "This is the never released Accurate Miniatures tooling", but it's impossible to say whether they know this for fact, or are merely repeating popular Internet rumour.

Naturally, I immediately fired off an order to Model Hobbies - Academy's distribution to Canada seems to lag most of the rest of the world by several months! (Trumpeter, on the other hand, seems to be able to get kits on the shelves, worldwide, almost immediately. Too bad they wouldn't do a few 1/72 GPW VVS fighters - the Yak-1b would be a good idea, I think!)

John

The Academy 1/72 Il-2 arrived today from Model Hobbies - it really is a beautiful kit! I did a quick search and found the following build article on the Accurate Miniatures 1/48 "Il-2m3", which includes sprue images of the 1/48 kit:
http://www.swannysmodels.com/IL2M3.html

Comparing these with the 1/72 Academy Il-2, now that I actually have it in my hands, it does appear that this *really is* the so-called "lost" Accurate Miniatures 1/72 kit. I haven't spent any time trying to judge the accuracy of the Academy kit yet, but regarding its quality and very fine details, I'd have to say that this is the best 1/72 VVS kit I've ever seen!

John

Hi John, :)
thank you for the news. If you find some deeper review on the web, please let us know.
Massimo

Unfortunately this is not the deeper review we'd like, but it offers the chance to compare sprue images with the 1/48 AM kit:
http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/kits/aca/kit_aca_12417.shtml

Micheal Benolkin refers to the kit as a copy and a scaled-down version of the AM kit, which of course it is, but he seems unaware of the probability that it's a 10-year-old copy, originally planned by Accurate Miniatures themselves. In his defence (if he needs any), he's probably not a total VVS freak like some of us (me, at least!), to whom any tiny rumour about VVS kits is something to be chased and analysed to shreds. In other words, he probably has no idea AM were planning a 1/72 Il-2 before they stopped production, and actually had the molds ready!

(As a sidelight, there is someone out there somewhere who knows the truth, besides the former employees of AM - I remember reading somewhere that AM had "test shots" of the 1/72 Il-2 on display at the IPMS USA Nationals that year, and someone STOLE them!!!) (No, it wasn't me...)

John