AModel 1/48 Yak-52

The Yakovlev Yak-52 (Russian: Яковлев Як-52) is a Soviet primary trainer aircraft which first flew in 1976. It was produced in Romania from 1977 to 1998 by Aerostar, as Iak-52, which gained manufacturing rights under agreement within the former COMECON socialist trade organisation. The Yak-52 was designed as an aerobatic trainer for students in the Soviet DOSAAF training organisation, which trained civilian sport pilots and military pilots. Currently the Yak-52 is used in the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Aerobatic Yak 52 Competition, a popular powered aircraft one-design World Aerobatic Championship.

While the Yak-52 was never intended to serve as an air-to-air combat platform, improvisation during the Russo-Ukranian war has led to the platform attaining kills against UAVs.

On April 27, 2024, over Odesa, Ukraine, footage emerged from the perspective of a Russian drone showing a Yak-52 being flown by Ukranian pilots with the canopy open. The first crew member, the pilot, flew circles around the drone as the second crew member attacked the drone with a shotgun. Through this method, a Yak-52 has reportedly attained 6 kills against Orlan 10/30 series drones and 2 against Zala 421-16E drones. Two more kills are attributed to lightning striking one UAV in front of the Ukranian pilots, and another to a drone encountering a birdstrike.

While the flimsy box doesn't so state, this kit is best tackled by experienced modelers. It is very much a short run kit and while the plastic is nicely detailed, the detail is fairly shallow and many of the finer parts are done in photo etch. This includes instrument panels, side consoles, seat harness, rudder pedals, engine fans and a number of other smaller bits, most of which will prove nearly impossible to attach. When it comes to building the instrument panels, there are acetate bits for the instruments.

The kit has no engine, just a piece for the protruding exhaust and the aforementioned engine fans, that should be installed in such a way as to block view of the empty engine compartment. The up side of this is that it provides ample space for the fairly large amount of weight that will be needed to keep this one from tail sitting.

You are provided with a single lower wing section and two upper wing halves. Landing gear is fairly fragile in appearance, but should hold up without any issues as they appear well braced. Some of the p.e. is used here for linkages and the odd underfuselage air intake. The kit provides separate rudder and elevators, but not ailerons, which are molded in place.

Markings are for two aircraft. One is a Russian civil aircraft while the other is a warbird that provides two different nose art options. All aircraft are while with red areas, most of which will need to be painted. Fortunately, the schemes are quite simple to mask. Decals are nicely printed though I'm not sure just how well they will fit or react to setting solutions.

Based on my previous experience with Amodel kits, this will not be an easy build and will prove frustrating to less experienced modelers, but it can be built into a nice model with some patience (and a lot of breaks). It isn't something one sees a lot, but it is an important training aircraft in a number of the world's air forces and quite popular with civil owners as well. As as note, I'm unsure if this is the same tooling as the Ark Models kit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-52

July 2024