1/48 Academy I-16 Type 18

by Scotty Diamond

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This is my second model after a hiatus of some 30 years (more or less) and while it has some minor issues it's my personal favorite.  It's Academy's excellent I-16 Type 24 kit and is OOB except for some scratchbuilt bits to detail the somewhat sparse cockpit.  Academy's kit has all the parts needed to build either a Type 18 or 24, skis or wheeled landing gear, and some underwing ordnance.  The kit goes together well with some minor filling need at the joint under the cowl where it meets the wingroot.

I chose to build the kit as Lt. S.G. Surzhenko's Type 18 (White 13) that he flew in the summer of 1941 with the 72nd Guards Fighter Regiment.  Because I wanted to open the cockpit door I added some spars, a gunsight, and some controls made out of stock styrene and wire. I rebuilt the stick to add the ringed grip and control rods.  I also made a harness for the seat out of lead foil and some etched buckles from my now bulging spares box.  I also added cowl louvers from styrene sheet and fully painted the engine.  You can't see a lot of the engine but I know it's in there and what you can see adds to the overall realism. 

Click on images below to see larger images

I painted it with Model Master acrylics.  I had a heck of a time getting the decals to lay down properly in spite of a Future coat and several silvered badly after I clearcoated the plane with a matte coat.  To fix that I handpainted the silvered areas as best as I could and then gave it another matte coat.  

The gunsmoke and exhaust stains are from ground pastels.  The I-16 had a wooden fuselage and metal covered wings and tail so I used brown/tan paint to show wear on the fuselage and a silver pencil to "chip the metal surfaces.  The area around the cowling, with metal panels that extended over wooden fuselage areas were carefully marked with silver on the metal part only.  It really made the overlapping look of the panels and cowling stand out.

I forgot to add the gear retraction cables before I mounted it to the base, but oh well..it looks good enough to me.  The base is sheet plastic I carved to look like a cracked and worn taxiway.  I painted it Floquil concrete and used brown and black acrylics to stain it.  The rest of the base is a plastic picture frame that has a glass plate that pops out.  I clued the plastic runway to that and it made a very nifty base. 

I have several other planes on my shelf now, but I think this one has the most character.

Scotty

Photos and text © by Scotty Diamond