By now, most of us are aware of what a shock and surprise the MiG-15 was to Allied airmen when it first appeared in the Korean War. The Soviets were not supposed to be able to produce a world-class jet fighter, yet here one was. Not only that, but in many ways, it was superior to the best that the Allies could put into the air, the F-86 Sabre. Fortunately, pilot training and quality meant that more MiGs fell from the skies than did Sabres, but those Soviet pilots with talent did manage to knock down their fair share of F-86s.

The MiG-15 went on to be a best seller in the world market as the Soviets supplied planes to those nations friendly to their cause and even had them license built in Czechoslovakia and Poland. The Chinese also built MiG-15s and the trainer version lasted well into the 1990s.

THE KIT

           

If you have seen any of the previous OzMods kits, then this one will look familiar. OzMods puts quite a bit of detail into their kit, especially when one considers the actual size of the kit. The image above is actually about 30% larger than full size. As you can see, there are a lot of bits, including a full cockpit tub, seat instrument panel and control stick. The wings and tail parts are single piece. The wings have tabs in them for the flush-fitting wing tanks. Later, larger drop tanks were used that had pylons so you are somewhat limited in this respect. Of course, you can always fill in the slot on the underside of the wing and do a 'clean' version.

You will notice that the sprue attachment points are rather large, so care is needed when removing the parts. These kits are for experienced builders as they are not simple throw together kits. The builder will have to blank off the intake and put weight in the nose as the MiG-15 is a bit on the tail-heavy side. OzMods has kindly provided two vac canopies so that you can afford to mess one up!

Instructions are basically an exploded diagram showing where the bits go. This is just fine for these kinds of kits, especially ones with so few parts. There are markings for four aircraft: Two are Korean War planes, one a North Korean version with the red nose as flown by Soviet 'volunteer' pilots. The other is a Chinese version in the striped scheme that is so popular when doing this plane. The Russian bird is a display plane with the upper half of the aircraft painted in red. The Czech plane is also one with a rather fancy scheme with a large red area on the upper surfaces as well, though not so much as the Russian plane. The decals look superb and quite thin so should work quite well on the kit.

CONCLUSIONS