You may remember back in June last year, I reported my Revell Lavochkin LA5 as finished? Well it was then. Now it's been started back up again. WHY? Well, on the way back from the HVSC model show in Hull, due to a bit of bad packing on my part it suffered a small accident when another model (my Churchill crocodile diorama) landed on top of it. You can see the results in the attached photograph. So, after hiding it away at the back of my display cabinet for a few months, I decided to resurrect what had been, in my opinion, my best bit of modelling to date by incorporating it into a small vignette. The scenario was originally going to be the aircraft having suffered a wheels up landing on the airfield after mechanical failure and so I purchased a resin Russian pilot to stand by it, waiting patiently for transport back to the mess. When assembled, his arm positions looked as if he was describing a dogfight to someone so the scenario evolved in my mind to an aircraft that had suffered minor battle damage, made a wheels up landing on the airfield with the pilot explaining the combat to the ground crew who had come to recover him and the plane. I looked about and duly purchased the other bits I would need to bring this to life; 1/72 scale GAZ 42 truck by Military Wheels and 1/72 scale Russian ground crew by Zvezda (which just happened to have an LA 5 on the box art!).
The first task was to convert the canopy from "fully closed" to "slid open" which having not played with clear parts much was not something I was looking forward to. Surprisingly, once I had prised it off the fuselage I managed to carefully cut it into the 3 separate components quickly and easily which is as far as I've got so far. Next stage will be to clean the edges up ready to put it back in the "slid open position BUT, after checking out a few pictures, I think I'm going to have to knock together the suggestion of a radio for the area behind the pilot as that bit will be a touch more exposed to scrutiny now. I'd already made a seat cushion and harness so was slightly ahead of myself with the detailing - twas as if I'd known!!!
In the background I'll be working on the GAZ 42 which comes in a box with a lift off top (the box type somehow seems to be important when one is reviewing a kit!!!) and on first look seems well enough detailed though smothered in flash and seam lines. The cleaning up of the parts will likely take longer than the assembly but THAT'S what modelling is all about, eh?
