Sovietwarplanes

Just building a bit on what marluc/Martin said in the other forum - it might be the Year of the Polikarpovs, not only the Chaika! As far as I'm aware, these kits of aircraft designed by the King of Fighters are possible this year:
I-153, 1/72, ICM
I-153, 1/48, ICM
U-2/Po-2, 1/72, ICM
I-16 type 24, 1/48, ICM
R-5, 1/72, South Front (?)

The last one has me almost as excited as the ICM I-153:
http://www.dishmodels.ru/gshow.htm?p=6314

The high quality of the workmanship in the photos speaks for itself, but note that this is a project by the amazing Valentin Muchichko, who previously did the masters for many of ICM's most detailed kits. I really hope this one goes into production this year!

(And as usual, who knows what surprises Amodel may provide!)

John

Another good news,thanks John.Our fellow spansh modellers will be very happy as the R-5 was one participant of the Spanish Civil War.Greetings.

Martin

Hi Martin! Just remember that this project has been going on for 2 or 3 years now, so there's no guarantee that it really will happen this year!

John

Hi John and Martin,
we could add the recent model of I-185... yes, the King of Fighters is smiling now.
I hope in some short-run kit of ITP, a particularly nice-looking fighter.
Massimo

One can only hope - Heaven knows, he had scant reason to smile during the later years of his relatively short life (he died less than a month after his 52nd birthday); this from Wikipedia:

"In 1928, under provisions of the Five Year Plan for experimental aircraft design, Polikarpov was assigned to develop the I-6 (primarily wooden) fighter for delivery by mid 1930. The plan was unrealistic and failed. As such, in October 1929, Polikarpov and around other 450 aircraft designers and engineers were arrested. Polikarpov was sentenced to death. In December, after two months of expectation for execution he was transferred to a Special Design Bureau of OGPU set at Butyrka prison and the sentence changed to 10 years of forced labor. Polikarpov and the others were moved to Design Bureau 39 (TsKB-39) to complete the I-5 project. Fortunately, after a successful demonstration, the sentence was changed to a conditional one, and in July 1931 he was granted amnesty together with a group of other convicts.

After the release Polikarpov resumed to be the designer of the I 15 and I 16 fighters. His construction bureau was disbanded in 1940 due to political intrigue, and one of his main designers Mikhail Gurevich went on to found the MIG bureau. Polikarpov was subsequently appointed professor at the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1943.

Polikarpov was a recipient of numerous awards, including the State Stalin Prize (1941, 1943) and Hero of Socialist Labor (1940).

He died on July 30, 1944 from gallbladder cancer. He is buried in Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow."

John

Hi Martin!  :)

R-5 did not participate in Spanish Civil War.  The plane you are referring to was known as SSS!

More about R-5 and SSS at http://z15.invisionfree.com/sovietwarplanes/index.php?showtopic=74&view=getnewpost

Regards,
KL

Hi John,
I know, it was not an happy life. Few people could have been happy there on those years. Polikarpow was  emarginated again in 1939 after the failure of I-180 and the delay to start I-200. I think that Yakovlev had a part in this.
Regards
Massimo

Thanks Konstantin for the correction,greetings.

Martin

You are correct, Massimo.  Aleksandr Yakovlev was a very powerful man and wanted fellow fighter designer Nikolay Polikarpov out of the way.

Regards,

Jason

Polikarpov's design bureau continued to exist after Mikoyan's OKB was formed in 1940.  From 1940 and during the GPW Polikarpov's OKB developed I-185, ITP, TIS, NB, BDP and Malyutka.  OKB continued to work after Polikarpov's deth under the leadership of V. Chelomey.


This seems to be an oversimplified view.  Yakovlev was glorified for 50 years and then people went to another extreme and negated everything he did.  The truth is somewhere in between.
It is hard to prove that Polikarpov was marginalized after 1940.  Compare what OKB Yakovlev did during the GPW - endles modifications of 1940 Yak-1 fighter + Yak-6 light transport - with all the various OKB Polikarpov designs developed at the same time - Polikarpov's OKB developed:  fighters (single and twin engined), a bomber, a transport glider and finaly a rocket interceptor!
Hope this helps.
KL

Someone "bumped" the Scalemodels.ru South Front R-5 thread yesterday, looking for news, but so far, no replies:
http://scalemodels.ru/modules/forum/viewtopic_t_18068.html


John

I have 1/72 Pavla I-15 for trade (sale), see my ad in items for sale.
Sorry for hijacking this thread. Btw new mold Po-2 is so very welcome, KP kit is really "tired".
Cheers,
Mario

Impressive 1/72 R-5 photos from Valentin Muchichko on Dishmodels.ru; I believe these are the masters he created, assembled and painted:
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdishmodels.ru%2Fgshow.htm%3Fp%3D9482

Although it's hard to be sure from the translation, it sounds like the release of this kit (or series of kits) by South Front is now definite. That's good news!

John

This just apeared on Serbian modeling forum with comment that these kits are announced for late 2011 (even tough U-2 was announced for late 2008):
(http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/5691/icmnews2011.jpg)

I saw on ICM's website that the U-2/Po-2 is no longer just under the "Kits in process [progress]" section, but is now also under the "Soon on sale" section, so presumably the master is done, and they're hopefully on to test shots and beyond.  We shall see.  I'm really looking forward to that 1/72nd scale I-153 most of all.

Regards,

Jason

Hey, I wrote that  ;D
This is based on the info from model-making.eu

If those kits are done with current ICM standard, it's gonna be sweeeet....

New photoetched I-153 cowling face assembly by GoNzA (Anatoliy Kovalev), also planned for 1/72:

http://gonza.moy.su/_nw/0/93990565.jpg

I hope ICM releases their new Chaikas soon!

John

Beautiful work from Anatoliy, as usual.  John, I've started work on my Frankenchaika again, so I'll try and finish it and see if we can't get ICM to release their Chaikas sooner.

Regards,

Jason

On behalf of all of us, thank you for making the sacrifice! ;)

John

John, this is the scale of 1:48. How to etch a model which is not yet ready? To be honest I'm afraid to be disappointed. as happened with the Yak-3. Therefore, in advance is not ready to do any good. I have a feeling that it would be disappointing year.

Musa, unless ICM do a completely bad job on the I-153, it's got be easier to build than what I'm doing.  Right now I'm trying to add three kits together to get one good Chaika.  I'm still looking forward to the ICM Chaika.  (Of course, if you did an I-153, I'm sure you'd have customers in John and myself!)

Regards,

Jason

Hi Musa! I'm sorry - I didn't think of it like that. I thought that Anatoliy would make the parts as accurate as possible, and if the model kit is wrong, then it will have to be corrected to match the accurate parts. In 1/72, the photoetched parts could even be used to correct this detail on the Heller I-153, I think. Two times I have asked ICM about the new I-153 kit, but all they say is that it will be released this year. If this fails, all of us will be disappointed.

John

(One more thing - I seem to remember reading that ICM are now using computer-aided design methods to master their new kits. If they had just left this process in the hands of a craftsman like V. Muchichko, the kit would probably have been released already. It would also be detailed like their existing kits which were done by Muchichko. Maybe it's still too soon - the year is not over yet - but I think they are having problems with their new process.)

hopefully

Any news on R-5 by South Front?
I saw the PARC models R-5 but it is the same old kit that apeared long ago as APEX (i bought that one looooong time ago) with better plastic tough (Apex plastic was shit only gluable with massive amounts of liquid cement or cyanocrilate).