Yak-3 questions: antenna lead and propeller marking

[Seawinder]

I'm working on the Zvezda 1/48 kit. The instructions apparently show the antenna lead box, molded with the rear cockpit shelf, in the cockpit color (A-14). I'm wondering if this is correct, or if it should be black.

Thanks!
Pip

[Seawinder]

Well, I guess I found the answer to my first question, at least going by photos of the museum display at Le Bourget: not black. On a related topic, however, in looking at a couple of other walk-around galleries, I found one example where the antenna lead went from the antenna wire near the tail down to the rear fuselage. All the other examples I've found have the lead going into the cockpit through a hole in the canopy just behind the mounting lug/hook. Was the rear fuselage lead an earlier configuration, or were there simply variations in placement during production?

Pip

[Seawinder]

Another question on the same subject. There are two photos of Rogovoy's White 15 in this thread,

http://sovietwarplanes.com/board/index.php?topic=1642.0

one of which is a pretty clear close-up of the rear fuselage. I'm thinking there may well be no antenna wire at all. Any opinions?

Pip

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi Pip,
in my idea, the hole for the wire can be seen on this image, and so the wire, but only where overposed to the canopy.  The part of wire on the sky background can't be seen, probably lost during the elaboration of the photo for printing.

Regards
Massimo

[Seawinder]

Yes, I thought I saw them too, but thought my eyes might be playing tricks on me. I'll mount the antenna on the model, thanks.

Pip

[John Thompson]

I checked a couple of references to see if there was any correlation between the antenna configuration you describe and the Yak-3 upper nose armament (early Yak-3's had only one machine gun, later ones had two), but found only aircraft with the antenna lead entering through the canopy. Sorry!

John

[Seawinder]

Thanks for taking the time to check, John. Apparently the vast majority had the antenna lead going through the canopy, so that's how I've done it.

Here's another question which I'm piggybacking here to avoid thread proliferation: Both the Zvezda and Authentic Decals sheets have one or more small white cross markings for the rear face of the propeller. Although Authentic provides several, both it and Zvezda seem to indicate that the cross should only go on one of the three blades. Zvezda, in fact, only provides one marking. I can't say I've ever seen a prop marking that wasn't carried on all the blades. Can anybody explain this? Should it indeed be on only one blade?

Thanks!
Pip