1/48 Gavia Kozedub’s Lavoshkin La-7

by Christian Curec - aka Chris Cat

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  Romania National Day 2004 

 

I wanted to start a series of models dedicated to WWII aces and my first choice was Kozedub’s La-7 “White 27”. 

 

Kozhedub

Fast, brutal and deadly – nicknamed “Ivan the terrible”, Kozhedub was the allied top ace during WWII. With a late start, during the spring of 1943 he scored 62 victories, including a Me-262 (the only one shot down in flight by the Russian army during the entire war).

He scored also another 2 other victories – 2 U.S. P-51 Mustangs which he was forced to shoot down over Berlin in 1945. The Americans have mistakenly taken his plane for a German one. Both shot downs were confirmed by USAAF.

During one of his latest interview, Kozhedub revealed that he never shared a victory with his colleagues. He simply gave them the whole victory. So, probably the number of victories scored by him was far greater than 62. 

Later, in the Korean War Air Marshall Kozhedub’s unit scored 207 victories over the U.N. troops with a loss of 27 Mig.15, and 9 pilots. 

 

La - 7

A true racer, the La-7 was the fastest single engine, propeller driven aircraft of the WWII. With its elliptical wings it could out turn any German opponent. The superb climb rate, and powerful armament made from it the only Russian fighter that easily adapted to the hit and run tactics adopted by Luftwaffe during the last phase of the war. The armament was assured by two ShwaK, 20mm canons and later by three canons of the same caliber, mounted in the nose of the plane. 

The only drawback was the general low quality of components, typical for the Russian industry of that period. 

 

Kozhedub’s La-7 – “White 27”

This plane has a very interesting story and it is incredible that “White 27” was completely destroyed in a stupid accident.

For all of you that are interested I strongly recommend to read the following article:  

“Lost in Time... The Misadventures of Ivan Kozhedub's Famous "White 27””

http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/Markings/Kozhedubs_White27/index.php

Click on images below to see larger images

The Kit

I have not used any detail set as I wanted to concentrate myself to obtain a very good finish of the model.

 I made a lot of correction to this kit as many shapes and dimensions are not ok:

  • corrected the position of the airplane (seems to stay with the nose up), by reducing the length of landing gear;  

  • rescribe the panel lines as the original seemed to by not deep enough;                                                      

  • reshaped the vertical stabilizer;

  • hollowed out the wing compressor ducts;

  • hollowed out the cannon muzzles;

  • made the pitot tube from a syringe needle

  • I have also cut out the red margins of stars (decals) as the original were post WWII ones (with a red stripe at the exterior)

The instructions for painting Kozhedub’s airplane are wrong as they are indicating a 2 tone camouflage. The decals are also wrong and the number 27 has a completely different shape. As I felt that I have already pushed the envelope to much I have left the shape on the 27 as it was.

I have painted the plane in a single color camo with post shading on the upper areas and pre shading on the belly. To a certain point it looks ok to me, but I think that I have used a to dark color for the post shading.

The gloss coat was made with Klir / Future and panels wash with oil paints. I have applied the decals using Solva-Set and Solva-Sol without any problems.

The last coat was a 95% diluted yellow to simulate the effect of the sun.

Smoke stains were airbrushed, using masks  with Tamiya Smoke.

Click on images below to see larger images

Diorama

Somewhere in East Germany, in the spring of 1945 Kozedub’s “White 27” is parked near some barrels (Tamiya 1/35 jerry cans). A few rocks, a bush and 2 wooden planks (set there to avoid the mud) are part of the little diorama.

It took almost 6 months to build this model (mostly a couple of hours in weekends) but I enjoyed every moment. 

A WARM - HAPPY MODELING ! - FROM ROMANIA

Christian

Click on images below to see larger images

Photos and text © by Christian Curec