New 1/72 Amodel HAI-1

[John Thompson]

This is a surprise release, I think:
http://www.hannants.co.uk/search/?FULL=AMU72174

Maybe there's hope for a 1/72 Yak-1b yet!

John

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi John,
this is a plane that I didn't know. I hope it preludes to a Rieman R-10. Do you know if these planes were related in some way?
Massimo

[John Thompson]

Hi John,
this is a plane that I didn't know. I hope it preludes to a Rieman R-10. Do you know if these planes were related in some way?
Massimo

Hi Massimo! According to Bill Gunston's "Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875-1995", the civil KhAI-1 was the first product of the Kharkov Aviation Institute (led by Josif Grigoryevich Nyeman), and was considered very advanced for its day (first flight October 1932). Apparently the designs of the KhAI bureau were not numbered consecutively, and the KhAI-5 was developed from the KhAI-1 in 1934 as a military version. The KhAI-5 was put into production as the R-10; from 1936 to 1940, a total of 528 aircraft including prototypes was built at three different plants (GAZ 43, GAZ 292, and Kharkov). So, in answer to the question, the KhAI-1 and the R-10 were directly related, according to Gunston. For example, judging from the general arrangement drawings in his book, the shapes of the wings and horizontal tailplanes were the same. I hope this helps!

There was a kit of the R-10 by Pavla, by the way, although this was one of their earliest kits.

John

[Massimo Tessitori]

Hi John,
thank you for your kind answer. I'll wait for a likely model of R-10. Making a family of models with the same mould and commercializing at first the less interesting version is a well known trick of kit makers; for example, the twin seater F-18 of Hasegawa was released before the single seater, so someone more bought both them.
I have worked on the Ar-2 of Pavla, an half scratchbuilding if one want to correct some of its worst defects, and then abandoned it when the Amodel was announved. I don't want to repeat that experience.
Massimo

[John Thompson]

Here's a set of R-10 drawings; it's reasonably visible, even without downloading it. The KhAI-5 is in the top left-hand corner:
http://www.airwar.ru/other/draw/r10.html

More:
http://hobbyport.ru/avia/r_10.htm

And here's the KhAI-1, which is what the thread was about:
http://www.airwar.ru/enc/cw1/hai1.html

More complete history of the type:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkov_KhAI-1

John

[Massimo Tessitori]

Thank you John, 
I've downloaded those pages.
Massimo

[TISO]

I knew this model sounds familiar
KhAI-1 in 1/72 plastic kit released in 2006 by never heard company Tema:
http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/portland/971/Inbox/k-m/khai-1-i.htm

Unfortunatly no pic's of plastic just box art. Could it be the same kit?

The kit:
This kit was produced for the 75th anniversary of the Kharkov Aviation Institute in 2006. The flimsy end opening box contains three sprues with white parts, and one sprue with clear parts. Even though the sprue gates aren?t overly large it is still best considered as a short run kit. There are a few molding imperfections but these are easy to clean up. Flash is minimal and there are no ejector pin- or sink marks. The transparent parts are thin and pretty clear. The single A4 size instruction leaflet contains a parts layout diagram, technical specs and 7 construction diagrams of the CG variety. The sharply printed decal sheet contains thin but very matt decals for one option. Colour information, for the exterior only, can be found on the back of the box.

Accuracy:
It is difficult to comment on the accuracy of this kit as I haven?t been able to find figures on the dimensions of the first prototype. I suspect the prototype was probably equal to the first series machines. In that case the fuselage length is correct but the wing span is about 6mm too short. The wingspan would be correct for a second series machine, but then the fuselage length would be some 3mm too short. Either way it is hardly worth bothering with as the finished model captures the look of the prototype very well. If you would like to build a series machine you will need to change a few things. On the series machines the fuselage door was moved forward to a position over the wing (at the 3rd window). Including the window in the door, series machines had 6 rectangular windows. For a second series machine the fairing behind the cockpit also needs to be lengthened.

Construction:
As usual with shortrun kits the parts need a clean up first, but fit is quite good eventhough there are no locating pins or tabs. The interior is made up of 7 parts, and includes a cabin floor and seats. However there is no rear bulkhead and the control column and rudder pedals have to come from the spares box. The instrument panel (part #16) isn?t mentioned in the construction diagrams. The fuselage door is a separate part and can be displayed open. The fuselage windows have no tabs and it will be a fiddly job to get them to lay flush with the outer fuselage. The engine assembly is served with 4 parts. It looks a bit simplistic and will benefit from adding pushrods and exhaust stubs. The wheel wells are boxed in with two parts that fit onto the full span lower wing half. Then the two upper halves can be fitted. The landing gear itself is made out of 6 parts for each unit. The remaining parts are the tail skid, a pitot and a venturitube.

Painting and Decals:
There are no detailed painting instructions given for the interior, so your guess will be as good as mine. The rear of the box shows the colour scheme for the prototype in full colour. The machine is mainly painted in aluminium dope and has dark blue trims. Only the wing fuel tanks and the front fuselage and cowling ring are polished metal. The colour indiacation on the box is wrong here as colour A should be polished steel instead of aluminium, and colour B should be aluminium instead of flat black.

Conclusion:
This is a highly interesting kit of Russia?s first useful airliner. As this was a strictly limited release (hence the rather high price) this kit will be hard to find.  I hope the molds will end up with Amodel or ICM some day. I would be very interested to see more kits of these highly innovative and often rather odd looking Soviet prototypes of the 30?s.

[TISO]

If this is the same model as one that i mentioned in prewious post there are pic's of the plastic parts here:
http://www.modellversium.de/kit/artikel.php?id=2225&origin=sparte