Seven Brave Men ("Семеро смелых" in Russian) is a 1936 Soviet action drama movie. It's all about Arctic, winter, bravery and courage. The movie includes several scenes with some interesting machinery of that time – aerosledge (aerosani/аэросани) and a rare airplane NIAI-1 "Fanera-2". "Fanera/фанера" means plywood, so the name could be translated as "Plywood-2". As you can guess, this airplane was made mainly of plywood. I bet you've never seen this strange airplane before, but actually pilots liked it because of simplicity and reliability.

And some other pics form the movie:

Several years ago MicroMir released a kit of this airplane in 1/72 scale.

It's a short-run, not an easy one in terms of building, but I bought it. Occasionally, I've started it just two weeks ago, and this is a perfect match for this group build, I think, so I'm in. I was thinking about doing the standard civil version (white with red stripes), but I've changed my mind in favor of this Arctic version, which should be overall orange (colorization AI agreed).

I need to do new numbers, but I know that kits decals are not good, and should be replaced, so in any way I need new ones.

Kit comes with PE-parts and masks for clear parts. From my side I've added a resin engine – it's the same engine, that was used on Po-2. And it's a short run, so the build process isn't that funny. I've started from sanding and polishing clear parts, which are also a fuselage. After Tamiya's compounds they look much better.

Overall fit is no good – pieces of styrene, filler to the rescue.

Dmitry @starfar this is wonderful. Your post is a real learning experience as I have never seen the aircraft (wow - a really interesting aircraft! - nor have I seen or heard of the movie.

I think the orange version would be best from the movie. Also, the "stills" from the movie are great - thanks for including them!

It can be a breath of fresh air getting away from Hollywood and into films that have something of a different identity. That said they say there are only seven narrative types in the entire history of story telling;

Comedy

Tragedy

Overcoming the Monster

The 'quest'

The 'journey' and 'return'

The 're-birth' or 'redemption'

'Rags to riches' (and sometimes back again.

Staying with this theme, anyone feeling adventurous and looking for 'Seven Brave Men' (not all are men, as you can see in the movie poster) should know that in Western film the movie has several titles, some of which are;

The Seven Bold Ones
Seven Brave Ones
The Courageous Seven
Seven Courageous
Brave Seven
The Valiant Seven
The Bold Seven
Seven Brave Men
The Seven Brave
Seven Brave Spirits
The Fearless Seven…

Remembering that this is a modeling site, huge respect Dmitri for sharing something new and I'm really looking forward to seeing you bring her into reality.

@starfar

Thank you friends for you words and interest! I will try to do my best with this build.

I always like learning something I didn't know before. This will be a very interesting addition to the projects.

I don't have a lot of updates, but currently, I'm working on the most critical part of entire build – wings and 4 clear parts should fit each other very well, because it's impossible to use filler for the most of seams. Kit parts fit is not that good, so I did re-gluing of small clear parts several times to find the right position. Not impressive, but somehow it goes on.

2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Ah, Dmitry, you must be a true modeler, for they never give up.

Thank you, mates!