History-
The
La-5 was the amalgamation of the Lagg-3 airframe with a M-82 bomber
engine. The resulting
airplane took a mediocre airframe and turned it into a match for the
Luftwaffe. The new airframe
was heavier than the Lagg-3 but the additional power made the La-5 an
outstanding fighter plane with good developmental potential.
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The kit-
Vector is
a new company out of Russia, distributed by Buffies Best.
Vector has made resin aircraft engines that are the ultimate in
detail and accuracy. The La-5
is their first full resin kit. The
kit is molded bubble free in straw colored resin.
The details are exquisite. All
the parts are easy to remove from the pour gates.
There is no flash anywhere. The
panel lines are fine, crisp and very nicely presented.
You are treated to four vacuformed canopies. Two of each type for those of you who, like me, are heavy
handed and still want to pose them open.
The decals are nice and offer options to do three machines.
They aren’t as crisp as Western decals but appeared to be
useable. Considering that
they were painted on the real airplanes by unskilled laborers they may be
more accurate. You will need
to scratch build three things, the antenna masts on the spine, tail and
pitot tube. These are easily
done and should cause no problems.
I got an early
production version of the kit and the wings and ailerons were one piece but my
later production version had separate ailerons, which I thought were a very nice
addition. My early production kit had rubber wheels from Avia Equipage
that I couldn’t bring myself to use (except for the tail one), but the later
versions have resin wheels, which are more accurate than the Squadron ones.
The
instructions are on one sheet of paper and are pretty basic.
Good thing everything is numbers on the instructions.
Remove the parts one at a time and attach them and you won’t have any
problem. You are given an acetate
instrument faces to add to the back of the panel.
Beginning Construction-
Construction
begins by carefully washing the parts in Dawn dish detergent to remove any mold
release agent from the parts. Be
careful as some of the parts are only attached by tiny pour gates.
Once that is
done, I removed the fuselage pour gates. Take
a scribing tool and just scribe along the spine and nose.
Once you have it thin enough you can break off the pour gate.
Flat sanding just the top with some sand paper and the fuselage is ready
to put together. Repeat the process
for the other half and the one piece wings.
Ensure you retain the airfoil shape of the wing leading edge.
This is the only cleanup required. Everything
else when removed will be ready to use. You
may have to touch it with a sanding stick just to clean it up.
I had the whole kit ready to assemble in less than a half hour.
I can’t do that even with a Tamiya or Hasegawa kit.
Heck they take me that long just to fill mold marks.
The quality of Vector’s casting is impeccable and the engineering
excellent. I don’t know how they
do it.
Cockpit-
Now that the
fuselage halves are ready, the cockpit is easily assembled by following the
instructions. The cockpit is very complete and needs nothing other than
throttle handles, which are not provided. I
didn’t add any keeping the kit OOTB and it still looks great.
The seat has the harness molded on and looks great.
I assembled everything except the instrument panel and painted the whole
interior Model Ensign VVS Wood Aerolak Primer.
The instrument panel was painted flat black.
The instrument acetate was attached to the back by Future floor wax
flooded on the acetate sheet itself and then positioned properly.
Once dry, the back of the sheet was painted white.
When dry paint over the white with flat black, as the back will be
visible from the top. Details were painted with Apple Barrel hobby paints.
An oil wash and light gray dry brush is all it takes to finish up the
interior. All easy, all painless,
and best of all quick. Except for
the throttle handles you have to add nothing.
Fuselage-
The fuselage
once cleaned up is pretty anti-climactic. You
flat sanded the surface so they are ready to go.
Make sure you glue the cockpit floor into one half before joining them,
as the armor plate behind the cockpit won’t fit otherwise, likewise for the
instrument panel. I used superglue to join the halves and fill the seam. Clean up is quick and easy. Being of wood construction there is no seam.
Wings and tail-
The wing is a
sold piece affair. Like I said, the early one had molded in ailerons and the
newer ones has separate ones. No
big deal either way. You will note
that my stick in the cockpit is offset to correspond with the aileron position.
The tail unit
is two pieces, left and right. Fit
is perfect.
Both were
attached with super glue and accelerator. Just
the slightest filler was needed on the front part of the wings.
Landing gear-
The landing
gear fit solidly in the wings. Nothing
difficult here. The actuators fit
onto the leg perfectly. The whole
arrangement is very sturdy and solid. You
can assemble the landing gear before painting, as they are the same color as the
underside of the airplane.
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Painting-
One key thing
with a resin kit is to prime the kit with an enamel or lacquer primer before
painting. This gives the paint,
whether it is acrylic or enamel, something to stick to.
I used Alclad Grey Primer and Microfiller.
It works well for me. After
fixing up some minor sand marks it was time to paint.
There are not many panel lines to preshade so I would have to rely on
post shading for my panel variations.
The color of
“White 15” is open to discussion but the current school of thought is that
it was never flown in combat and only used as a presentation aircraft after the
war. After the help of Wes
Stachnick and the VVS website (http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/)
we determined that the color of “White 15” with its large bass mouth, too
ugly to be called a shark mouth was painted in AMT-12 a dark gray.
I opted for the Gunze color for this.
I added a little white to the color and painted the flight control
surfaces this color to break up the bland gray color.
I know the controls and the wings were fabric cover wood but call it
artistic license. The lower color was from the old Aeromaster line and
approximated AMT-7. It is a little
pale but looked good to me. “White
15” did not have the aluminum panel behind the exhaust typical of the other
La-5s. Yellow was added to the tail
and the spinner. Don’t forget to
cut masks for the mouth pattern on the decals.
I painted the area semi-gloss black.
The other
aircraft would be similar in appearance in that it has an ugly bass mouth, but
this one was used operationally and is more typical of a La-5.
Before painting the camoflage I painted the heat panel behind the
exhausts with Alclad Aluminum. After
masking this off with Tamiya tape I painted the underside AMT-7.
The topside is typical of most La-5 in having AMT-4 green and AMT-6
black. The black is very easy I
used Gunze Tire Black as I thought flat black to be too, well black.
The AMT-4 is almost a direct match with Gunze US Interior Green so that
is what I used. The colors were
freehanded for a loose pattern. A
coat of gloss and it was off to the decals.
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Decals-
What can I say
I’m a sucker for a large mouth bass, okay so they are technically shark
mouths. I utilized the Aeromaster
sheet for “White 15”. The shark
mouth would make or break the kit so I put it on first.
No problem everything fit like it was designed.
I used Solvaset to make sure everything settled down nicely.
The rest of the decals were cobbled together from various Aeromaster
sheets. This particular airplane
had peculiar stars with yellow surrounds on them.
Unique looking to say the least.
I decided to
use the La-5 bonus sheet that comes with the La-5F kit.
The small mouth bass decal was not a problem.
I used the kit decals for the wings and fuselage.
They all reacted well with the setting solution but when I overcoated the
decals with the gloss coat they crinkled. All
of them, except the bass mouth. Thank
God. How that happened I don’t
know, but I’m grateful. I pealed
the Vector decals off with tape. A
light sanding with Micromesh reapply some gloss and it was time to apply some
Aeromaster decals. The issue with
the decals is the only weak spot of the kit.
Over coated
with gloss and then a semi-gloss clear (Grey one) and flat (camouflaged one)
made the airplanes ready for weathering.
Weathering-
Weathering was
kept to a minimum, as the wood surface seems to hold their color pretty well.
Besides “White 15” was a display bird anyhow. The other one would have been relatively new and the
Luftwaffe shot them down with alarming numbers.
Just some burnt umber in the panel lines and some Alclad burnt Sepia
exhaust streaks, along with some Mig Pigment mud for the wheels and the
weathering was done. If you
haven’t tried this weathering medium they work really well. Paint them where you want them and then apply some water to
set things up. Or ally water and
then the dust and you have some mud. Very
versatile.
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Final touches-
Adding the
front part of the canopy was a non issue, if you were careful when you cut them
out the fit is very good. A little
white glue and it faired in perfectly. The
sliding portion was tacked down with just little bit of superglue to hold it on
the tracks. I did have to fashion
replacement rear windows from acetate because I screwed up the ones in the kit. I
got carried away with the sanding stick. They
were all attached with white glue. Adding
the wheels and the antenna masts are the final steps.
Put the custom built antenna on the spine and tail is relatively easy.
No big problem. Time to sit back and enjoy my first two VVS machines in all
their big mouth bass glory.
Conclusion-
Some people may
complain about the cost of the kit, but think about it this way, an injection
kit of this quality will cost at least $40.
Now you know you have to have an Eduard photo etch set, which you will
only use some of anyhow, $15. You
like the look of the photo etch seatbelts too, $10.
We all know that a resin cockpit set would set it off too, $20.
Of course you’ll want to have resin wheels, $5.
Don’t forget the vacuform canopy, better buy two, as you will need them
both, $10. You are now over $90
already. You typically spend the
cost on a kit, just not all at once. Now
take into account the excellent fit and engineering of this kit and you have a
winner.
I cannot say
enough good things about this kit. The
fit is fabulous, the cleanup is easier than most injection molded kits, the
subject is fresh and exciting and to top it off the engineering makes this a
quick build. I absolutely loved it. The
only bad thing is the decals and that may have been me.
Obviously I liked it enough to do two kits.
It is easy to build and looks great right out of the box.
Do yourself a favor and try this kit.
You won’t be sorry. If you
have never built an all resin kit this is an excellent place to start.
If you have you will be surprised at how easy this one is.
Now it is on to
the La-5F, La-5FN and the new Lagg-3s. When
will this madness end? It is a very
good time to build VVS fighter airplanes. We
now finally have accurate kits of these historically significant airplanes. Why did it take so long?
Come on decal manufacturers and make us real happy.
Without a doubt
this is one of the finest resin kits that has ever been kitted.
Marvelous work Vector.
Highly
recommended.
Floyd
Thanks to
Buffies Best for the review kit and it can be purchased directly from Buffies
Best at http://www.buffiesbest.com. Or
by contacting them at:
8716 East Frontier Place
Denver, Colorado 80237
720-200-9122
References-
-
Lavockin
La-5, MBI Publisher, ISBN 80-86524-10-8
-
Lagg and
Lavochkin Aces of World War II, George Mellinger, Osprey Publishing, ISBN:
9781841766096
-
Soviet Aces
of World War II, Hugh Morgan, Osprey Publishing, ISBN: 9781855326323
-
Soviet Air
Force Fighter Colours 1941-1945, Erik Pilawski, Classic Publications, ISBN:
190322330X
-
Lagg
Fighters in action, Squadron/Signal Publications
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