The
Lavockin La-5FN kit comes from Czech manufacturer AML and is a multi-media
affair: It contains plastic, resin and a vacu canopy, but no etched fret. It was
one of the first real short-run kits I ever did; there are no locator pins, and
fitting the assemblies was rather difficult and time consuming. A lot of time
had to be spent on dry fitting, filling and sanding.
The
decal sheet gives you 12 options in total; 11 for Czech Flight Division planes
from World War II plus one Czech post war example. I chose the mount of Captain
Frantisek Fajtl, who flew this plane at the time of the Slovak Uprising in
September/October 1944 from Tri Duby airfield in Slovakia.
I
painted with Haarder & Steinbeck airbrush using Mr. Hobby colors, weathering
was done with oil paints.
Click on
images below to see larger images
I
believe this kit has some shape issues, most notably the air intake on the
cowling. It should be more flat towards the back section, something I
realized too late. Modifications on the original kit: replacing the pitot
tube with wire and adding brake lines.
A
very interesting subject, but a challenging kit. Apart from the old Kopro/Zvezda
molds, this is the only La-5FN available in 1/72 scale to my knowledge.
Roman Schilhart
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