Massimo hope this helps. This are my impressions on this kits
General for both kits:Basicly both kits are rather old moulds i belive first time issued by Politehnika from Rostov on Don in the 1980's (at least that is the oldest mention of this kits that i found). They are the only game in town (unless you find some vac version).
Firstly I have to addmit that I didn't compare them to drawings as in this case my thinking was "be gratefull to Gods of scale modelling for the reissue of the kits and shut up" (especcaly since this kits were reaching bloody high prices on E(vil)bay). Fit of both kits is not up to Tamigawa standards which means you will need basic understanding of use of puttying and filing and possibly some scrachbuilding. Both kits have some flash and some small parts would do well with replacing. Both kits are rather simple (well no engines, wheel wells and such complicated things) and are I belive rather good renditions of the real things (as I said I didn't compare them to the drawings but Eyeball Mk I says they look the part). If you do them from the box no biggie but since I in my "unlimited wisdom" decided on opening all doors that could be opened and lower the flaps which adds to the work significantly. Right now I'm finnishing the G-11 interior (on A-7 I pencil drawn construction in interior) and I finished both wings (minus flaps)
Antonov A-7HobbyTerra link with sprue shots- Nice representation of canvas on the wings.
- Rather bad fit of the wing ouside panels and soft detail of stiffners - the stiffners on the wing centroplanes would be best filed down and replaced with thin plastic strip. A fit problem which i compounded by cutting out flaps
- Problems with mounting of wings on fuselage as centroplane is integral part of upper fuselage part and lower wing parts are just up to the fuselage leaving fuselage sides "hanging in the air". Due to this i glued 1 mm plasticard parts on the ending of lower wings so the centroplane now sits on fuselage sides.
- interior is rather basic but i does have 3 piece floor, seats, pedals control column and 2 rib frames. All in all well above standard for kits of that age. Floor is a bitch to get it right if you decide to open the doors as due middle part is over U/C bays and sits a bit high - which is noticible only if you open the doors. If you open the doors you will have to do a bit of dryfitting and filing to get the floor lower i.e. in line with the doors and you should detail interior a bit as per drawings.
- U/C detail is rather low and i would reccomend re-doing small parts it from scrach - it is rather simple so that shouldn't be a problem
- If you decide to open the doors and make interior be carefull as all of the drawings are based on Modelist-Konstruktor drawings on which fuselage cross section is mirror image (it shows from the right but is in fact from the left - no doors after the cockpit on left side of fuselage drawn)
- 2 small circular windows on the bottom of fuselage (behind the cargo compartment) are not present so this one you should drill out yourself (position is on M-K drawings)
Gribovski G-11:HobbyTerra link with sprue shots- Basicly same as for A-7 could be said for this kit.
- passanger doors are separate pieces and are a bit too small. I found out when doing interior construction that doors are approx. 1,5mm too low on the upper side i.e. top of the doors should be in line with upper line of the windows i.e. right up to the wing. I decided to leave them as they are.
- floor is a one piece affair and should be thinned a bit and bent a bit to get it in line with passanger doors
- passanger seats should be resting on tubular supports and not plank like pieces but this is noticable only if you open the passanger doors and even then only on the seats near to the doors
- some detail must be added to the cockpit as you get only pilot seat, pedals, instrument panel and control stick (go by the drawings)
- small parts should be replaced to get better effect
- Clear pieces are satisfactory - seen worse.
Markings:Seems that with moulds same basic markings were the same in all kits. In Parc kits colours are called out in AMT standard only:
A-7:- yellow 7 - Podmoskovye 1943 1st school for glider pilots basic green (AMT-4)-black(AMT-6) camo with white fuselage stripe, stars with white border
- White distemper (MK-7) over green-black camo no markings, plain red stars
G-11:- red 3 - Podmoskovye 1943 1st school for glider pilots basic green (AMT-4)-black(AMT-6) camo with white fuselage stripe, plain red stars
- solid AMT-4 green - no markings - stars only as white border - Yugoslavia 1944 - old AER instructions say 8. independant glider regiment in Yugoslavia 1944
i was already asking about this one here My opinion:I reccomend this kits to modellers with basic puttiying and filing skills. As i said not a Tamigawa kit.
Could be used for diorama with
Zvezda small set of Soviet ww2 VDV figures (4 figures) or with bunch of partisans (
Preiser and/or Caesar Miniatures
H006set and/or
H056set) and civilians as these planes were largely utilised for partisan supply missions.
