I was told Prop&Jet kits are perfect: high quality castings, excellent fit, total accuracy. Or something like that. So when a chance to build one arose I grabbed it – both the chance and a model. The latter one was Nikitin NV-6.
I had known nothing about this aircraft before I started the kit – or went on with it, as some parts were already glued together by previous builder. The plan was to upgrade kit with some details I hoped to find on photos of the prototype and have fun with a nice-looking, small and apparently easy model. Then dreams were shattered by reality in the form of just 3 (three!) photos. I quickly realized that it was nearly impossible to correct all the flaws of the kit! I mean accuracy, as even if I found the fit not so perfect, the kit is easy to built as is. But to correct its shape… If you want an accurate representation of NV-6, you have to replace or modify almost all the parts, and this is resin, you know…
So I had surrendered idea to improve the kit and proceeded with building “out of the box”. The only parts I made myself were the rudder (for original one was ruined by my predecessor and had quite unsatisfactory surface details) and cabane struts (for I was unable to install pre-painted resin ones and it was easier to put plastic ones instead – they do not need priming!). Also I attempted to correct the shape of the fuselage’s tail section, but not much prevailed.
The result is still quite good-looking, but I can’t recommend this kit to those who think that model kits should be something more than just toys - an accurate representations of the prototype, for a change. Really I suspect that all Prop&Jet kits of obscure Soviet aircraft are of the same – and very low - degree of accuracy, so beware!
Full – and very long - story of this build together with complete list of kit’s problems you can find here (in Russian).
Recommended Comments