Hobbycraft 1/48 La-5/7

The Lavochkin La-5 and La-7 series of fighters were flying overhead in May of 1945 as the Red Army was grinding towards Berlin with burning German Panther tanks scattered about the country side.  This colorful statement is a summary of the cover of the Squadron reference La 5/7 Fighters In Action # 1169. What is clear, according to many accounts, the La-5 was the first Soviet fighter with performance superior to that of the German Bf-109G. The  La-5 series was the most widely used radial engined fighter in the Soviet  Air Force with 9,920 built during “The Great Patriotic War”. The Czechoslovaks have the distinction of being the sole operators of the La-5 outside of the Soviet Union. The wooden, radial engined aircraft was the  mount of the top scoring Allied ace, Ivan Kozhedub. Kozhedub had the distinction of flying at Kursk as his combat debut. Within days he was credited downing four aircraft in one day (two Stukas and two Bf-109’s).  Many more victories followed and later he was credited with shooting down a Me-262 while piloting the La-7 on Feb. 15, 1945, as the war drew to a close.

There are similar parallels in Japanese aviation with a good in-line engine fighter becoming much better with the grafting of a larger, more powerful radial engine (the La-5 used the M-82 engine) to the same airframe. Such was the case with the La-5 and La-7 where a good design, the LaGG-3, was made even better by the transformation to a radial power plant design. Using a series of aviation techniques found on other aircraft such as the close  fitting, tapered cowl used on the Fw-190 with a similar engine fan layout created another winning design. Because the La-5 prototype was converted  from the LaGG-3 the cockpit components were nearly the same speeding up the development cycle.

Although the radial engine was much heavier than the LaGG-3’s in-line engine, the M-82 engine’s greater horsepower provided 5mph more speed at sea level and at least 21 mph more at 20,000 feet. The combined increased speed  and greater climb rate, despite a weight gain, turned this aircraft into the workhorse needed by the VVS.    One month of trials and it was in mass production with the first La-5 aircraft leaving the production lines in April of 1942.

A few changes such as increasing the engine oil cooler size, which was mounted below the engine and in front of the wing root along with an air intake fairing and gun breech bulges created the distinctive La-5 appearance. The early production La-5 had a small door above the main strut cover and had the antennae wires leading directly into the vertical fins edge. Shortly after production started the antennae were relocated to a new post at the top of the vertical fin.

The German aircraft industry, however, was also moving forward and the Bf-109G-2 that was soon encountered proved to be a better aircraft in general. Just when things looked better for the Soviets along came the Focke Wulf Fw-190. LaGG added fuel injection and boost (supercharging) to push performance in an attempt to stay competitive in the air war.

Refinements were made to the La-5 airframe resulting in the La-7.  The prototype was completed in January of 1944. The La-5’s“starter dog” found at the tip of the nose spinner for attachment to an external power source to start the engine was deleted in the La-7. Numerous other design changes resulted in a similar looking but very different aircraft. The LA-7 featured improved visibility with a cut-down rear quarter and a retracting rear landing gear leg with clamshell doors.

When the Hobbycraft La-5 and La-7 kits were released in the 1980’s it featured a mix of heavy and fine details. Fabric on the surface controls was much too heavy. The scribing on the fuselage and wings was recessed and fine  enough to be acceptable. There are no canopy options; the canopy that comes with the kit can only be posed in the closed position. Cockpit detail is crude, and may be to the liking of scratch builders but I opted for a resin replacement from True Details.

Once I built the first kit I realized with a lot of aftermarket additions it looked acceptable. Without all the added aftermarket I would not enjoy the kit since it is just too crude. There are also parts for the La-5FN, in the La-7 box but this later kit is really a La-7 with La-5 parts. Some have said,   “ Don’t go near it” but I prefer to build them all if there is no other kit available. It took about ten years before Gavia came out with their release of the La-7. As for the La-7, it looks like one until you build a Gavia kit, which is without a doubt a much better representation. My goal when I built these kits was to enjoy the color schemes and decals. This build provided me with that satisfaction.

My kit building started with the traditional modeler’s delight over getting some nice decals from Superscale and Aeromaster and wondering what the black and white decal placement drawings would look like when the paint and decals were applied. I knew very little about this aircraft when I started and built the kits solely due to the interesting color schemes that the
aftermarket decal makers provided.  At the time I built these kits there were very few reference books on Soviet W.W.II aircraft. The few I found helped a great deal. Unfortunately the excellent Squadron In Action book was not available so a few errors that I could now avoid went into the build. The In Action book is exceptional with all the details and drawings needed
to understand the La-5/7 nuances.

I built one aircraft to get a feel for the subject. This confirmed they all needed every piece of resin and etched metal I could add since they were still somewhat crude despite my efforts to upgrade the plastic. Despite all the aftermarket additions I did not lapse into AMS – they were fast builds, which I prefer. After building the batch of five aircraft I bought a few more Hobbycraft kits for a second project because there were some decal options I had not used. To date I have not gotten around to building them – since I was seduced by a few new releases from Monogram, Hasegawa and Tamiya along the way. Then along comes Gavia with a nice rendition……  So, the purpose of this article is to encourage you to build the Hobbycraft La-5/7’s in your stash because it is a fun build if you don’t mind a few inaccuracies.

Construction started with the cockpit. I opted from day one to use the inexpensive and very nice Squadron True Details resin cockpit, #48463 LA-5 cockpit detail set. To this I added the insight details (now sold by Meteor under the CE label)  stock # 25007 U.S.S.R. PBP-1B gunsight, and True Details 48097 La-5 resin wheel set. I wanted to create as good a model as possible so I also added the Eduard 48-013 etched metal set to the construction. After the first kit was finished the canopy looked poor (it is far too thick). I added the Squadron vac canopies to the mix to get much better results. With a good paint job, it looks fairly decent. I painted everything using Aeromaster Medium Gray and Model Master Light Ghost Gray. Once the resin is assembled, it’s simply a matter of dropping the resin cockpit into the fuselage. I assembled the wings and added the vertical tail using two pieces of paper clip wire as locator pins to attach it.

I then attached the wings to the fuselage and continued by filling in the gaps and seams with  putty. A fast sanding with flex-I-files and it was ready for paint.

The fit was fine overall. I also built up the spinner and drilled a hole for  some plastic rod for the La-5 versions. Once the rod was set I used a triangular file to cut a notch in the end to simulate the La-5’s “starter dog” which is an example of the finer details left off the Academy kit.  The oil cooler went on but lacked location pins. I put it in an approximate place after I added the Eduard etched screen and painted the inside black.

The Squadron vac canopy was masked and painted separately. It was attached as a final step along with the antennae wires and wing lights. I used the MV Products (#LS220+LS221) green and red light lenses used in model railroads  to try and improve the overall look. I was not skilled with weathering at the time I built these kits so they look too pristine for my taste today. Even looking at them today they seem to lack much in the way of panel lines and fine details to benefit from washes, as do many other kits with finer details. A heavy wash and some chalk pastels along with some Tamiya smoke on the metal exhaust heat shields would be a next step if I were to go back and update these kits. I often think I will go back and do some final touches but I never have.

Painting

I used Aeromaster and Model Master enamel paints overall with some Gunze Sangyo for small details. The prominent heat shields were treated to Bare Metal foil. This was a simple step and added a lot to the aircraft. I also used Bare Metal foil for the cowling strips.

I painted the wheel wells and all the landing gear parts Model Master RLM 02 since it is close to the color used on the planes by the Russians. I attached the gear legs on the plane and added some wire for the hydraulic brake lines. When I installed the main gear doors they looked very clumsy. After looking at them a bit I felt the resin wheels offset this deficiency.  I decided to get the project done so I wrapped up the project with small touch up painting steps. On the La-7 aircraft I replaced the plastic pitot tips with some guitar wire. That was my final step. I certainly enjoyed the decaling and end results for the five red stars.

Decals
Once the Testors Gloss Coat had dried, I proceeded to decal the planes. The  decals were from Superscale and Aeromaster. The Aeromaster decal is an early release using the black & white profiles rather than the color instructions we have come to enjoy.  At this point I’ll list the five aircraft I built in a batch with the specific components and modifications used:

La-5 Early  “White 15” Pilot – Captain Gregori Kostylev 3rd GV. IAP
Hobbycraft  HC1589
Decal – Aeromaster 48-009 (an early one!)
True Details La-5 Resin Cockpit Detail (#48463)
Eduard Etched Metal #48013
True Details La-5 Resin Wheel #48097
MV Products Red & Green Wing lights (LS220 & LS221)
References: Red Stars by Guest, Keskinen & Stenman page 34 full-page photo
    Squadron La 5/7 In Action # 1169 rear cover color drawing

I used the kit canopy and it looks terrible. It is too thick and does not  fit in an open pose. However, it was partially intentional since I had to modify the rear quarter to convert the kit to an early La-5 and a vacuform  canopy could not handle the modifications. I left the sliding canopy segment  on in the pictures to illustrate how poorly it looks and fits after you separate the canopy. The early La-5 rear quarter required some epoxy putty to re-contour the supercharger bulge on the cowling top and the air intake at the top edge of the cowling. The large nose decal was part decal and partly painted. I used a paper paint mask from the Aeromaster decal instructions to mask the black portion and some red paint , hand painted, to complete the mouth.


La-5FN “White 01” (some profiles show it as Yellow 01)  Pilot Vitali I.
Popkov
Hobbycraft  HC1589
Decal – Aeromaster 48-086
True Details La-5 Resin Cockpit Detail (#48463)
Eduard Etched Metal #48013
True Details La-5 Resin Wheel #48097
MV Products Red & Green Wing lights (LS220 & LS221)
Insight Details resin gunsight USSR PBP-1B #25007
Squadron Products vac form canopy (#9524)
References: Fighting Lavochkins page 32 - 33 color three-view drawing
    Stalins Eagles, Hans D. Seidl Schiffer Books 1998 page 355 color profile
    Squadron La 5/7 In Action # 1169

La-5FN “Silver 15” “For Vasek and Zhora”  Pilot Capt. P. Likholetov
159th IAP, 275th Fighter Aviation Division, 13th Air Army Leningrad 1944
Hobbycraft  HC1589
Decal – Aeromaster 48-009
True Details La-5 Resin Cockpit Detail (#48463)
Eduard Etched Metal #48013
True Details La-5 Resin Wheel #48097
MV Products Red & Green Wing lights (LS220 & LS221)
Insight Details resin gunsight USSR PBP-1B #25007
Squadron Products vac form canopy (#9524)
References:  Squadron La 5/7 In Action # 1169  photo page 20,  color profile
page 25

La-7  “White 93”  Lt. Col. Dolgushin
165th IAP  4th Air Army Germany 1945
Hobbycraft  HC1589
Decal – Aeromaster 48-009
True Details La-5 Resin Cockpit Detail (#48463)
Eduard Etched Metal #48013
True Details La-5 Resin Wheel #48097
MV Products Red & Green Wing lights (LS220 & LS221)
Insight Details resin gunsight USSR PBP-1B #25007
Squadron Products vac form canopy (#9524)
References:  Stalins Eagles, Hans D. Seidl Schiffer Books 1998 color profile
page 354
    Squadron La 5/7 In Action # 1169

La-7  “White 27” In Winter Camouflage Pilot: Ivan Kozhedub
176th GV IAP  Winter Germany 1945
Hobbycraft  HC1530
Decal – Superscale 48- 428
True Details La-5 Resin Cockpit Detail (#48463)
Eduard Etched Metal #48013
True Details La-5 Resin Wheel #48097
MV Products Red & Green Wing lights (LS220 & LS221)
Insight Details resin gunsight USSR PBP-1B #25007
Squadron Products vac form canopy (#9524)
References:  Squadron La 5/7 In Action # 1169

I really enjoyed these kits thanks to the exceptionally attractive markings from Aeromaster and Superscale. The prices for the kit and accessories were very reasonable and made for a limited challenge as long as plastic perfection is not your goal. With a little work, and lots of resin and etched metal it can be made in something that will almost rival the Gavia kit. I wholeheartedly recommend this kit to anyone looking for a fun build and anxious to put those great decals to use. This aircraft would have been a perfect match for an Eduard “zoom” set since the Eduard #48-013 etched metal was an early release and had too many parts that I was unable to use given the resin components were so good.

April 2005

Fighting Lavochkin – Eagles of the East No. 1 by Michael Alanshin  1993

Red Stars – Soviet Air Force In World War Two 1939 – 1945, Geust, Keskinen, Stenman , Ar-Kustannus Oy Finland  1993.

Squadron # 1169  La 5/7 Fighters In Action  1998.

Soviet Combat Aircraft of the Second World War Volume One: Single-Engined Fighters, Yefim Gordon and Dimitri Khazanov 1998

Soviet Aces of World War II, Osprey Aircraft of the Aces # 15,  Hugh Morgan, Osprey Aerospace, London, 1998

Stalins Eagles, Hans D. Seidl Schiffer Books 1998
 

Andrew Garcia

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