Academy MiG-21MF ‘Polish Air Force’ 1:48 – build review

Reviewed by Dave Coward

Background info…

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (NATO reporting name “Fishbed”) is a supersonic jet fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. It was popularly nicknamed “balalaika”, from the aircraft’s planform-view resemblance to the Russian stringed musical instrument or ołówek (English: pencil) by Polish pilots due to the shape of its fuselage. Early versions are considered second-generation jet fighters, while later versions are considered to be third-generation jet fighters. Some 50 countries over four continents have flown the MiG-21, and it still serves many nations a half-century after its maiden flight. The fighter made aviation records. At least by name, it is the most-produced supersonic jet aircraft in aviation history and the most-produced combat aircraft since the Korean War, and it had the longest production run of a combat aircraft (1959 to 1985 over all variants).

References used:

The internet
And one to get you in the mood….!

The Kit…

I noticed that Eduard were due to release a new tooling MiG-21MF but before I got my hands on this (or another SMN reviewer builds it) I thought I’d have a go at the older Academy model and see how it stacks up against its newer rival.  The Eduard kit should retail at around the £40 mark but the Academy kit is about half that depending on which edition you get.  The basic kit retails at around £18 (it can be picked up for less than this on e-Bay) and the Polish edition at around the £22 mark.  The main difference between the academy kits being a limited edition set of Cartograf decals (two decal options are provided BORT 6841 and BORT 9111), some exterior photo etch (PE) and a metal pitot tube in the Polish version.

An initial look at the kit looked very promising.  There is no flash present on the sprues, the surface detail is crisp and not overdone and the instructions are clear and logical.  The kit contains roughly 120 grey parts on 5 sprues, a clear sprue with 5 parts and a PE sheet.  The kit supplies the mandatory GSh-23 23mm gun, though the GP-9 gunpack is still leftover from the MiG-21PF kit.  Externally Academy has supplied two 16-shot 57mm rocket pods and two 32-shot pods; two external tanks; 2 infrared air-to-air missiles and 2 radar-guided air-to-air missiles.

Construction…