Zvezda 1/144th I-16 Rata

 I was a picking up some planes anyway so I thought I'd add to my early war Russian air fleet. Like the Ju 52 I had a vague idea about doing this in SCW colours, but in the end I just did it as a WW2 plane. I don't play enough SCW these days to justify getting 1/144th scale planes for it when I have loads of 6mm ones. 

There it is all finished, waiting to deal with the fascist Hitlerites. I can't believe these old clunkers were still in service in 1942 and even later in some sectors. They have a bit of a Tin Tin feel to them.

Here it is in its raw state. It is a pretty basic kit! It only had a few parts but the nose assembly was unnecessarily complicated. It went together fine though and hardly had any flash. It has lovely fine detail moulded on, perhaps too fine in the case of the MGs, radio mast etc which are so thin it is hard to see them surviving any sort of handling. 

I opted for undercarriage up. It is a bit of a scrappy assembly as I haven't got the wheels flush, but I don't bother much with the undersides in any case. I've only just noticed that there are teeny tiny MG case ejection slits moulded onto the underside of the wings. Blimey.

Although I have my 'Soviet Aces of WW2' as a reference for paint jobs, I did a bit of digging into WW2 Soviet aircraft paint schemes and the modelling consensus now is that the predominant schemes up until mid war for VVs fighters is olive green with black or dark green disruptive No brown at all! Well blow me down with a feather (bombers and assault aircraft are different). Sadly it means my Mig 3s are the wrong colour, but my Lagg 5s in their late war grey/dark grey are fine.

Anyway, it looks rather smart in green and black with the wierd loop pattern on the wings, and it really makes the decals pop.

Just to emphasise how small the I-16 is, here it is next to a Lagg (by no means the worlds largest fighter).

And here it is flying over the dining table on its 'flight stand'. I've moved over to using acrylic cups for all my planes now, they are just so much more stable than flight stands. The only exceptions are my heavy diecast planes which use their heavy duty supplied stands as long as they are stable enough. 

Not sure how much action it is going to see, but it is nice to have one 'just in case'. I'm sure I can work it into a game somehow.