Yak-23UTI (SpecialHobby 1/72)
A very rare one from my favorite First Jets Era. Yak-23UTI was a 2-seat trainer version of the Yak-23 "Flora" fighter. Only one aircraft of this version was produced, but surprisingly it survived and now kept in museum.
This is Special Hobbys's 1/72 scale kit. I would recommend it only to fanatics, obviously because it's a short run kit with many issues. Fit is not good, even canopy can't be attached without sanding and filling. Air intake is wrong, the tip of the rudder is wrong, resin main wheel bay doesn't fit and so on – a very long list for real. And strange painting colors in instruction and also with a mistakes in painting scheme.
So, I've put some work into it. Air intake and rudder were fixed. Main wheel bay mainly made from scratch. Second gun on a starboard side was added (I can't figure out why manufacturer did it – only one gun on the port side was present). A lot of PE parts for interior and no instrumental panels – I've made decals. Canopy parts are made from foil – it's similar to vacu-formed canopies but made without vacuum.
Painted with new AK metallic paints with some addition of Alclad II. Weathered with oils and pigments as I usually do.
Hope you'll like this little Yak. Thank you for your attention!
7 additional images. Click to enlarge.
Tom Cleaver said on December 27, 2015
A triumph of persistence and skill over adversity!
Craig Abrahamson said on December 27, 2015
Nicely finished and photographed, sir.
George Williams said on December 27, 2015
A beautiful little Yak.
DE4EVER said on December 27, 2015
🙂 ... Greetings ... 🙂
Very rare and unique YAK, not seen too often.
Nice job on it's color.
Josh Patterson said on December 28, 2015
Very interesting plane. I like the tale of the Flora smuggled out of Yugoslavia, test flown in the US, then smuggled back! This makes me want to bust out my NeoMega Flora and get cracking! The discrepancy you saw in the armament was not. The port gun was deleted on the UTI. Nice job on a tiny model though. I love Soviet jets from the 50's and 60's, thanks for bringing another one to the table!
Dmitry Stropalov said on December 28, 2015
Yeah, guns is a complicated question. I didn't found a good photo of this plane from a starboard side, but I didn't find any historical references that gun was removed too. UTI was made from a regular one seat plane which has two guns. And finally it's present on the museum piece. So that's why I decided to add second gun.
Stellan Schroeder Englund said on December 28, 2015
Great little plane. Love it, beautifully modelled.
P.k said on December 28, 2015
A good selection of interesting aircraft type.
Big LIKE!
Rob Pollock said on December 28, 2015
Nice work, Steve. You're the first person I've seen to use the AK metallics, although I know a load of people who bought them in the past couple of months.
Greg Kittinger said on December 31, 2015
Great looking little jet. I love these odd subjects. You got great results with the NMF.