I drilled the leg and the broken
part, cut a small piece of thin alloy
rod to beef it up, and superglued
it. The rest of the undercarriage
doors are a very positive fit and
were mounted without drama.
At this stage I also fitted the
tailplanes. The locating hole
needed to be drilled out and the
pin cut down in order to fit them.
Finally, it was time to mount
and paint various aerials and the
nose probe, and it is with the latter
that I deviated from building the
kit completely from the box. The
probe consists of two parts, one of
which decided to go flying and land
somewhere on the floor, never to be
seen again! The obvious recourse of
a piece of alloy rod was complicated
by the vane arrangement whichwould have to be scratch built.
Fortunately, the aftermarket
came to the rescue, and a
replacement probe by Master
(MR48129), was soon winging its
way through the pre-Christmas
post. When it arrived, I found it
consisted of two sections of alloy
probe, with a sleeve holding the
vanes in resin. The sleeve joins the
two parts of the probe, and after
drilling out the front of the nose, I
fitted it. A test fit showed that I had
to file back the front of the nose a
little so that the diameters matched.
After adding and painting
the probe, and a dab of clear red
and clear green to represent
the navigation lights, I had
finished my Foxbat B.CONCLUSION
As a Spitfire fan, I eagerly purchased
ICM’s Spitfire IX when it was first
issued in the early 2000s, and then
had to purchase some aftermarket
items to replace short-shot wheels,
prop, etc, to say nothing of a whole
lot of filler to deal with sink marks
and fit issues; nevertheless, it was
the most accurate Spitfire IX at
the time, and it seemed that ICM
just might have some potential.
The MiG-25 RB, along with their
other recent releases, demonstrates
just how far ICM have fulfilled that
potential. The brand has come a long
way since those early kits, particularly
in terms of moulding quality and
fit. The Foxbat does need care in
building, but it repays that care witha superb model, which will impress
by its sheer size; it’s a big aircraft.
I found the unusual construction
breakdown an interesting variation
from the usual one of two basic
fuselage halves. With hindsight
this is a very good way to build
up the airframe, resulting in
a strong solid structure with
plenty of moulded detail.
In my First Look at this kit I said
“This kit promises a rewarding build
...”, and I can say without doubt that
the kit delivered on its promise.
Grateful thanks to Valeriia
Buzina of ICM for supplying
the review sample.REFERENCES
- https://testpilot.ru/
russia/mikoyan/mig/25/
rb/mig25rb_e.htm - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-
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