Yak 1
Brengun 1/72 Yak 1 by Juan Manuel Valea
A
ccording to Wikipedia
(the source of all quick
answers nowadays), the
Yakovlev Yak-1 was a World War
II Soviet fighter aircraft that was
fast, manoeuvrable, well-armed,
easy to maintain, and reliable.
Beginning production in 1941,
it was the founder of a family of
aircraft, with some 37,000 being
built, and formed an excellent
basis for subsequent developments
from the Yakovlev bureau.
As a reward for his work on
the aircraft, designer Alexander
Yakovlev was awarded the highest
decoration bestowed by the Soviet
Union, the Order of Lenin (Russian:
Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina).
He also received a 100,000-ruble
prize and a Zis motor car.THE KIT
The kit comes in an end-opening
box with attractive box art. Inside,
you will find three sprues with
48 grey plastic parts, one rather
large clear sprue with ten parts (if
desired, you can model an open
canopy), an etched frame with 17
parts (which includes landing gear
doors, but no seat belts!), and a
little resin cast with eight parts,
representing wheels, skis, and
rockets with launcher rails. Finally,
to complete the package, you have
instructions and a decal sheet.
On first inspection the parts
reveal recessed panel lines (though
rather soft in places), and the
interior looks to be quite busy.
There are no alignment points
anywhere, a rather common featureon short-run kits. The instructions
are supplied with both Czech
and English text. The decals look
very promising and are printed in
perfect register, but they are few, as
this was a plane with few markings
and no stencils of any kind.BUILD AND PAINT
As per the norm, I started with
the well-detailed interior. The
instrument panel is supplied as a
photo-etch piece, while the seat
is made from several bits of nicely
detailed, but rather fragile, plastic.
Seatbelts, which were made from
masking tape and a few leftover
buckles from other projects,
were added to the seat (I feel that
adding seatbelts is a necessity,
considering that they can be
clearly seen through the canopy).
And now we run into the two
main criticisms of the kit: First,
the cockpit floor is made of nine
pieces, not counting the seat and
instrument panel. It is very hard
to properly align all of them, and
they need some minor surgery.
This problem could have been
easily avoided if the manufacturer
had not over-engineered the parts
for the cockpit floor. It could look
well-detailed with three or four
parts, and in my opinion there is no
need to make it in nine. (Could this
be due to the limited-run nature of
the moulding machine used? Ed.)
The second problem is that,
despite having a very nicely
detailed cockpit, the manufacturer
has omitted the side consoles
that appear in my references!There is no sign of them at all in
the kit, which is a shame because
it makes that much more work to
add them, and you cannot leave
the canopy open without them.
The interior was painted in
acrylics, mostly custom matches
of Citadel and Vallejo shades. After
the base-coat colour was applied,
the interior and instrument panel
received a dark acrylic wash, as
well as some light chipping in
metallic colours to show wear
and tear. The fit of the completed
cockpit to the fuselage is quite
good, although a bit flimsy due
to the lack of locating points.
Closing the fuselage and adding
the wings and tail planes was
straightforward, with just a little
putty used to hide the joins.
The pieces that surround the
wheel wells were another area
that caused a bit of work. It was
impossible to add these without
involving major surgery, on both
the pieces and the upper and
lower wings. I picked the easy
way and left them out altogether,
but unless you turn my model
over you will never know.After pointing out these
negatives, I must say that
Brengun adds a nice touch with
the four photo-etch plates, which
have lovely rivet engraving and
are added to the undersides
of the wings. Great fit, easy
to do and lovely looking.PAINTING
After masking the canopy, the
model received a coat of Tamiya
Light Grey as a primer. This primer
coast also allowed me to see if they
were any blemishes. After that,
I pre-shaded with Tamiya Dark
Green. The undersides received
a custom mix of light blue, made
from Tamiya Royal Grey with a bit
of Tamiya Royal Blue and Revell
Aquacolour Lichtblau added, all
diluted with a mix of window
cleaner and water for airbrushing.
For the topside colour, I used
several light coats of a mix of
Tamiya White with a drop of Dark
Green. After letting it dry for a
few hours, I very carefully and
very softly ran a 2b mechanical
pencil through the panel lines.
A few light coats of Tamiya
Gloss Varnish were added, then
decals, then another coat of gloss.
One last coat of Tamiya Matt
Varnish finished the painting.
The last step was weathering
the airframe. Russian airplanes in
WW2, especially those wearing the
temporary winter camouflage, are
known for some heavy weathering.
I considered using the hairspray
technique, but, lazy me, I went
with the old paint-stick-and-
sponge to make the scratches
and blemishes on the plane. The
colour chosen was Vallejo Olive
Drab. After that I added quite a bit
of chipping with Citadel Boltgun
Metal (which is not as shiny as
silver), and a few touches here
and there with a silver pencil.
The exhaust was painted76 • NOVEMBER 2017 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL
KIT REVIEWS
072-77-Reviews-1117.indd 76 16/10/2017 15:51