OEZ 1/48 Mig-21 MF/ bis/ SMT

From the late 1950’s to the mid-1980’s, thousands of Mig-21’s were built.

There were three generations of Mig-21’s and many subvariants of each of these.

Like many fighter aircraft, the Mig-21 began it’s existence as a clean lightweight fighter, but grew heavier and bulkier as more fuel and equipment was added for the fighter-bomber role.

In the Mig-21, a lot of these additions happened in the spine.

The version with the biggest spine was the Mig-21 SMT: designed for tactical nuclear strike missions by the Soviet air force. The tanks in the spine were originally designed to hold so much fuel that stability in flight was compromised. The fuel capacity was subsequently reduced, but the big spine stayed.

The Mig-21 was exported and donated to many nations that accepted Soviet help. As a consequence, Mig-21’s acquired many exotic camouflage schemes and colourful national insignia.

If you ever want to build a Mach 2-capable fighter with the national insignia of Burkina Faso for example, it will have to be a Mig-21.

The Mig-21 was the first kit from the Czechoslovakian firm OEZ. It was first released in 1988.

There were decals and optional parts for a Czechoslovakian Mig-21 MF, a Mig-21 bis from Finland and a Mig-21 SMT from the USSR.

This particular kit is a “high-tech kit” released in 1990. The additions are a small photo-etch fret from Eduard and a decal sheet with nose-art for Czechoslovakian aircraft from 1989.

I believe that “scantily-clad lady” nose art was pretty rare in the Warsaw Pact air forces and these examples from 1989 are probably a sign of the changing times.

The PE fret provides parts for the landing gear struts, ejection seat handle, AOA indicator vanes, canopy sills and Odd Rods IFF antenna.

This PE fret is remarkable because it must have been one of the first Eduard products and it is marked “made in Czechoslovakia”, not yet “Czech republic”.

The kit itself has recessed panel lines.

I know very little about the shape and dimensions of Mig-21’s, but this kit seems quite good to me.

It is not really easy to build, though.  I’ve seen it described as “a vacuform kit with the parts already cut out” and that seems like a good description.

Putty wil be required. Just putting the upper and lower wings together leaves a gap. I don’t think it would be advisable to sand down these parts so that they go together without a seam. I think that would make the whole wing too thin. On mine, I just filled and sanded the seams.

The kit is moulded with the Mig-21 MF spine in place and provides alternative spines for the Mig-21 bis and Mig-21 SMT versions.

Installing these other spines will also require some modelling skills.

Luckily, the exotic Mig-21’s appear to be Mig-21 MF’s in many cases.

The kit includes two underwing droptanks, one centerline droptank, two air-to-air missiles, two air-to-ground rocket pods and four large caliber air-to-ground rockets.

This kit is long out of production, but can still be found at swap meets.

I paid 150 Belgian Francs (about 4 Euros) for mine back in 1992. They are usually priced a bit higher at around 10 Euros, which I’d still consider a bargain.

With some modeling skills, you can build it into a nice replica.

Stefan Buysee