Completed Review – Tamiya MiG 21 (61602)

Scale: 1:72, RRP - £3.99

A while back I attempted to build one of Tamiya's largely forgotten series of 1:100 aircraft, in this case a MiG-17 which if I'm honest was a less than impressive build. So as a result I've largely forgotten this series until I saw some for sale at the Shropshire Scale Model Show the other week. As they were selling for £2.99 each I thought I might well give them another go.

The MiG-21 is a fighter I've always found interesting, back from the days when aircraft designers still tried to build aircraft that resembled sci-fi rocket ships and so I was keen to see how this one would build.

Opening up the kit and the parts looked good, to my untrained eye it certainly looked like a MiG-21. There are a choice of 4 markings, (two Soviet, one Polish, one Vietnamese) all in silver, so in reality it's a case of painting it up and then just choosing which decals to apply.

As builds go it was absolutely straight forward as there aren't many parts at this scale. Cockpit detail consists of a seat, which once the canopy is on is all you'll see anyway. Apart from that you have choice of wheels up or down. Unlike the MiG-19 the missile pylons and missiles were much less of a struggle to attach which was a relief

 Paint wise I used a base coat of Tamiya AS-12 (spray) and then masked individual panels and airbrushed them with Tamiya X-11. This was mostly down to the fact that these two colours were only silvers I had! A coat of semi-gloss spray and then on with the decals, I decided to go for the Vietnamese variant.

As it happens I know a bit about this particular aircraft, 4326, it's one of several on display outside the Hanoi Aircraft Defence Museum, it's well known as a "Phantom Killer" and among its pilots it counts Nguyen Van Coc, the highest scoring ace of the war. It is actually a MiG-21PF and because the painting instructions weren't quite accurate I made some changes. I referred to the more accurate painting instructions for Academy's 1:48 MiG-21PF kit, of which this aircraft is one of the options to build.

The changes were, a dark green nose cone, and the fin at the rear (rather than black) and the cockpit colour which I changed to that awful Russian interior turquoise. It a shame there aren't any decals for the kill markings that adorn the nose of this aircraft, I guess this version will have to be an early version!

I really enjoyed this build, it was quick, fairly simple but still, the end result is a model that I think looks really nice when on display. It's now got me looking for one in my preferred 1:72 scale!


Overall Build Score: 3 out of 5, a simple and yet good looking kit that was a breeze to build. Let down only slightly by the lazy painting instructions.