Build Review – Airfix MiG 15 (A02037) – Part 1

I know this is a slight deviation from my to do list but I've had this kit a while now and I got a sudden urge to build a cold war jet. I had originally decide to do an in box review of this kit but got carried away and started building it...


The kit itself is one of the more recent toolings, from late 2009. This is few years after Hornby took over the Airfix brand and had started to drag it out of the model kit dark ages. While not as good as the very latest Airfix kits we've been seeing it was certainly a step in the right direction when it was released.

So in the box, how does it look?

First thoughts are, it looks good, the shape looks like a MiG-15. The details are a little heavy in places but in my opinion that doesn't take anything away from the model. I did notice that a few details were mirrored on both sides of the aircraft which isn't the case in real life, but again that won't spoil the model in any way. Also I feel the wheels do look a bit small for this scale and I think one of the bars across the canopy is missing.

The marking options certainly caught my eye. There's three options, an iconic silver VVS (Soviet Airforce) one, a thin striped green and yellow variant from the Korean war and finally a three tone camouflaged Hungarian aircraft from the 1970's. I think these 3 options give a good range to modellers of varying skill levels. In addition to this there's plenty of decals, the silver option has many, should you wish to detail warning signs and instructions that seem to adorn every panel of the aircraft.

I decided to opt for the silver version myself, wanting a straight forward paint job and the chance to apply plenty of decals for a change. But before I could get on with that I had to start with the cockpit which I was going to detail with some Eduard Zoom extras (set SS358).

The cockpit was painted grey using a mix of Citadel paints to produce the required shade. I have seen some modellers painting the interiors of MiG 15s that vivid Soviet turquoise that is so common in Soviet era aircraft. However I believe that was only adopted later (probably around the time MiG-21s came in service) and so isn't correct for this aircraft.

This cockpit is tiny when it comes to super-detailing and was a bit of a challenge. I think the basic cockpit is perfectly suitable for the beginner, especially if you want to add the pilot figure. I didn't and so that was the only reason I decided to use the Eduard extras.

Apart from that I used some liquid green stuff to add a bit more detail to the seat as it would be visible, some photo-etch seatbelts (which were incredibly fiddly) and that was the cockpit done.

Silver paint was then added to various interior parts and then I was ready to start assembling the fuselage and wings. More on that in part 2.