As promised, here's my build thread for the Dec, 1974 MM kit of the Russian seaplane, the Beriev Be-4.
History (from Wikepedia);
The
Beriev Be-4 (originally designated
KOR-2) was a
reconnaissance flying boat built to operate from Soviet warships during
World War II. Its development was a direct result of the failure of the
Beriev Be-2 design. The Be-4 was an elegant, parasol-winged
monoplane with a slight inverse-gull wing. The large
radial engine was mounted in a
nacelle above the
fuselage. This aircraft had none of the vices of the Be-2 and was quickly put into production. However, not many had been completed before the fall of
Sevastopol and the over-running of the Beriev factory. Production was resumed in
1943 at
Krasnoyarsk, which is where most of the roughly 100 examples were constructed.
The kit;
The nice thing about this one is that there must be more ink in this single kit than in any five other MM kits I've seen. The printing is very heavy and even throughout with only minor printing blemishes. The Russian red star actually looks red in this kit!
There are seven pages, including formers. The kit has no interior, but I plan to add one. This won't be all that easy as there are a number of internal formers and the hull/fuselage doesn't look like that simple a form to get right. I should mention that this is a Bohdan Wasiak design. My last Wasiak kit, the Shinden, was a real joy to build but it was the exception among the lot.
The paper is the old woodchip/pulp stuff, so a scan and print is in order. I only hope that the solid printing of this one allows my limited computer skills to do a decent copy of the kit.
There are plenty of diagrams spread over six pages, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to find where all of the pieces go.
The wing is also an inverted gull-wing, so there are plenty of places along the way for me to get this one wrong. In my mind, I'm telling myself that this model is just another Stuka wing deal!
Wish me luck!
Chris