Wow, I didn't expect so many posts after it was rather quiet in this thread.
Nice work on the cockpit! Your grey looks very good. Were did you see there was a ''hot pipe'' in the cockpit? i missed that one in my research. I have noticed that there are some Yak-1 interior things were present in the Yak-1B cockpit. like the oxygen system. Is this correct?
Thanks Remco. Your build looks very nice too and having the side panels removed makes things so much more challenging.
The grey is A-14 from the Mr. Paint range manufactured in Slovakia. This paint airbrushes very nicely as it is lacquer, but is very tricky to paint by brush for touch ups.
Yes, the pipes can be seen in the cockpit pictures of the preserved Yak-1b at Saratov.
A few things I noticed when assembling the cockpit. The placement of the side panels is too low in the kit, specially if they are replaced by PE. I raised them by 1mm. Also the seat pan placement is too high. I attached it nearly at the bottom of the seat back. This I think makes things look correct proportionally. In addition, the Seat pan is to wide as there should be a substantial gap between the seat and the side panel with some leavers in between. Unfortunately there is basically no gap with the kit seat. I noticed this too late in this build, but I may try to correct this if I build another ModelSvit Yak-1.
I actually have very little knowledge on Russian aircraft, but I learned a lot during this build. I think it is nearly impossible to get the cockpit interior 100% correct as changes had been made so frequent during the production of the aircraft - like the fitment of the receiver RSI-4 (radio) which was not standard on all the aircraft. Was it fitted on this aircraft? No idea, but it looks good fitted, so in it went
Same with the first aid kit.
In early (high back or "razor back") Yak-1s, engine coolant piping ran through the wing fairing. At the same time when fuselage back was lowered, wing fairing was made "tighter" (this change probably isn't noticeable in any model which represent both "early" and "late" Yak-1s). This change meant that the piping had to be moved inside the cockpit. Engine coolant piping was normally painted in green, section that was in the cockpit was insulated.
Thank you KL for contributing this information. Good to know that the radiator pipes aren't visible in razorback Yak-1s. Painted the pipe on the right hand side green - any colour variation in the grey cockpit are a welcome visual addition.
I would say that FAS was made of canvas, and thus can not be blue - rather khaki
What does FAS stand for?
Yep, just found the hot pipe on the photo's. It didn't noticed.
I think its made of hemp clothing material. And it has good isolation advantages. On to desk, and scratchbuild. I am going to build it with some thicker soldering wire, and put a tissue paper over it, glued with CA glue. Then paint it with Panzer Aces "hemp" color. Weathering is further done with a black and sepia filter (not a wash! The decoration will be to dark...)
Great that you can still add these pipes to your build. I used 1mm Evergreen rod on the right side and 1.2mm on the left. Looking at the cockpit picture above, I think only the left pipe is insulated (has to be where the coolant flows from the engine to the radiator) which is why I used a thicker rod there.
Maybe asbestos insulation tape?? It's light beige, almost white (it gets dirty quickly...)
That is what I assumed too and I am glad that the light beige I painted the pipe with is close to what it could have looked like. Of course it also could have been painted green, but I like the beige, giving another colour in the cockpit.
I do have some issues with the seat and the harness. Armory has a harness for the Yak-1 which I think is wrong. Apparently the Yak-1 had a Sutton style harness which can be seen in the picture below.
The harness Armory provides I have only seen in older Soviet aircraft like the Rata.
In addition, I have seen several builds where a slot was added to the seat backrest for the harness to go through. The ModelSvit seat back doesn't have the slot and I wonder if it the harness goes through a slot or over the top of the seat back. Unfortunately I can't find any pictures showing this.
I still would appreciate some information regarding the harness used and if it was mounted through a slot in the seat back or over the seat back on the Yak-1b.
Please keep the information coming which I am sure will be of help to others building the ModelSvit kit.
Thanks to all, Peter