Ukrainian MiG 17, April 2022


The Ukrainian Oleg Antonov State Aviation Museum in Kiev has large collection of Soviet era build aircraft. While most of them are on static display only, the museum started to bring selected aircraft in flyable condition again.
One of them, a MiG 17, was completed in early February 2022 and waiting for its first flight when February 24th happened.

From this time on, the Ukraine air force came under immense pressure and every flyable plane was collected for military usage. Like the freshly refurbished MiG17.

While no match against contemporary Russian fighter aircraft, the three 23mm cannons proved quite effective against Russian helicopters, scoring the first areal victory on March 4th.

By mid-April, the aircraft, which was mainly flown by Major Andriy Melnik, was able to shoot down at least 8 helicopters, with three other unconfirmed kills.

However, the age of the plane paid its tribute and because the lack of spare parts, flight operations got more and more problematic. Therefore, the MiG had its last operational flight on May 27th, after which it was landed at Stryi Air Base in western Ukraine. By today the plane is still located there, but in a non-flying condition.

The model shows the MiG 17 at Stryi Airbase









The Model:

This is a 1/72 scale KP-Model kit of a Mig17, build OOB with custom made decals. Painted with Revell Aqua Color.

Nice build 

great theme. Nice

The gray splinter scheme works really well and  l enjoyed the backstory, too.

I second that!!

Total agreement..nice little build 

      

Pretty!    Unlikely, but pretty, and good work with the old KP MiG-17!

Don't know about unlikely. There were elements of the Ukrainian people fighting for complete independence from Russia in the 1917-1920 period, as there were in the Baltic states & Finland, who were more successful.

The simple "What If..." is to decide that "The Ukraine" (as it was at the time) gained its independence in 1920, too, &, like Finland, held off complete re-absorption into the Soviet Union during WW2 but at a price, including "forced neutrality", & followed a similar post-WW2 path, losing Luhansk, Donetsk & the Crimea to the USSR in the 1947 Paris Peace Treaties.

I've got a couple of very good books on Eastern European history circa 1917/1922, but if anybody wants a single, excellent source then I would recommend "The Splintered Empires - The Eastern Front 1917-1921" by Prit Buttar. It's the final volume of his 4 part work on WWI on the Eastern Front, published by Osprey. The whole series is excellent and certainly opens your eyes to an oft neglected theatre of operations, at least from a Western European perspective.

The Grandfather of Kyiv!

In my minds eye I can totally see this happening. Probably wouldn't get away with it for long.

Made me think of an Ukrainian Alpha Jet, as an L-39 replacement (ex Luftwaffe) in the 2000s as an attempt to modernize/westernize the aircraft fleet (e.g. along with my Ukrainian F-16D)...

I know, the Mig17 is not sooo realistic, but I still had a few of those old KP kits around and wondered what to do with it. And I liked this kind of camo