This conversion began in late 2001. At the time, the Hasegawa kit was the
only option in 1/72 and detailed walk-around photos were not as easily obtained.
Naturally, the far superior Condor kit was released not long after I completed
this kit and numerous pictures are now available. Still, many of the same
principles could be easily applied to produce a MiG-25R variant, or even
MiG-25BM ‘Wild Weasel’, from the Condor model.
The history of the MiG-25 is relatively well documented. For this
conversion, my primary reference was the Aerofax book covering both the MiG-25
and MiG-31, by Yefim Gordon. Designed as a interceptor with incredible
speed, the MiG-25 also found a niche as a high altitude reconnaissance platform.
In fact, only reconnaissance variants remain in active service today.
In its reconnaissance guise, the ‘Foxbat’ spawned several variants utilizing
conventional wet film, Infrared, passive ESM, and radar equipment. The
RBSh is an upgraded SLAR platform. Like all of the recon MiG-25s, it has
an extended nose to house the equipment. They are rarely seen with
underwing pylons, despite the fact that they have a secondary bombing role.
Construction began with the forward fuselage. I had the drawings from the
Gordon book blown up to 1/72 scale. From the drawings, I determined the
cut point on the forward fuselage for the new nose. At this point, I just
made the cut. I saved the nose job for later. The cockpit in the
Hasegawa kit is completely devoid of detail. I built new bulkheads,
sidewalls, and the instrument panel from styrene. I intentionally cut the
rear bulkhead large. When the fuselage halves were glued, this created a
tight seal to the bulkhead—using liquid cement. The excess was carefully
cut away leaving a perfectly shaped piece.
For the instrument panel, I used the ‘sandwich’ technique. First, I
made the outer face, drilling out the locations of the instruments. For
the back, I painted white styrene with Polly-S Black. Then, I set the
outer face on top of the back. Using a fine needle, I scraped away black
paint to create the instrument faces. For some of the instruments, I added
touches of yellow, blue, and red paint. I also added some spare PE to the
instrument panel and side consoles for further detail.
The pit was painted with the odd Soviet turquoise color. The seat is a
True Details KM-1, painted with shades of black and grey. Some detail like
wiring and electrical boxes were added to the forward gear bay also. Then,
the forward fuselage was glued together. I masked the canopy using
transparent tape, carefully cutting it back away from the actual line in order
to paint the distinctive pink seal. First, I painted black (which is
visible from the inside as the interior color. Next, I painted the pink.
Then, I masked again, this time covering a narrow sliver of the pink to
preserve it. The canopy was then glued to the fuselage.
This isn’t the end of forward fuselage work, though. I carefully cut
away a portion of the sides where the intakes are attached. Then, I added
sheet styrene to create the spill for boundary layer air. At the same
time, I cut new intake splitter plates from 0.040” styrene. These
splitters have a very distinct shape, completely different from the kit pieces.
Test fitting showed that this area now had both a poor fit and was far too wide
(since the original splitter plate had a curved inside to match the fuselage
contour). I took the fuselage and sanded it flat until the proper width
was established. This would also create a good surface for gluing the
intake splitter plate.
The upper surface of the intakes completely lacked rectangular air outlets which
I saw in both the drawings and the references. I cut openings for the
outlets and then boxed them in with sheet styrene.
With the monstrous openings of these intakes, there was no way that I was
leaving just a blank wall at the back. I chose to make the whole duct back
to the compressor face. I started by gluing the forward intake to the
fuselage sides, boxing in the duct area with styrene. I also created the
variable shock ramp with styrene. I resin cast copies of a compressor face
from my spares box. I cut a matching diameter of brass tube to form the
final duct to the compressor face and glued the tube to the end of the duct.
The transition between the styrene and tube was carefully smoothed with Milliput.
An unusual feature of the MiG-25 is a methanol injection tree forward of the
compressor within the intake duct. I made these with some spare pylons for
the vertical section and 0.040” styrene for the horizontal ‘branches’.
The bottom of the intake duct also formed the top of the main gear bay. I
painted the light grey. The methanol trees are silver. The
compressor center is green, with steel blades, and a wash of black.
With the intakes complete, the whole fuselage was assembled. Large amounts
of Milliput and Squadron putty were necessary to blend the parts and to correct
shape problems on the lower fuselage. I obliterated most of the raised
detail—which was fine since I was going to re-scribe anyhow.
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images below to see larger images
Next, I assembled the wings. Then I removed all raised detail from the
fuselage, wings, and tail planes. Using my scale drawings, I carefully
scribe panel lines. The wings lacked a stiffener on the top, and fairings
for the pylons on the bottom. I chose not to add pylons since it is rare
to see a reconnaissance ‘Foxbat’ with them. I also added small aileron
actuator fairings with styrene.
I added detail to the main gear bays. Unfortunately, I lacked good
references from this area and repeated Hasegawa’s error in making them
pitifully shallow. The main gear were completely scratch-built with
tubing, rod, and strip styrene. The nose gear was a combination of the
kit’s, the fork from a MiG-23, and styrene details.
In
part two, I will describe building the nose, exhausts, painting, and finishing.
Tom
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images below to see larger images
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