Yak-15Db

[PR19_Kit]

The Yak-15Db

In the gaps between working on my Canberra MR23 I also put this little device together.

Remember this profile by Electric Blue a few months ago?



Amongst the various Yak-15 configurations he produced this particular one sparked my imagination, and I already had one of the Pioneer 2 kits from many years ago. Searching on eBay turned up two more, so I bid on the cheapest one and got it for the princely sum of 99p! Thus armed I did a bit of background research on the Yakovlev Design Bureau in that period, modified history a bit in my head, and set to work, both on paper and in plastic.

The kit(s) were surprisingly neat and well moulded in a pale cream plastic the consistency of granite. I kid you not, it was quite possible to break a scalpel blade trying to cut through some of the components, and I did, at least twice. Obviously one fuselage was to be built as standard, so I added a few bits and pieces to the sparse cockpit, such as a larger floor so the pilot didn't fall out of the engine exhaust pipe, and a panel so he had some idea of what was going on. A few odd boxes here and there added spice to the mixture and gluing the other side on completed that assembly.


The starboard side, with no cockpit, needed a little more work. So after assembling the two sides I made a horizontal cut behind the canopy toward the fin and filed out a small slot. Then bent the upper rear deck down until it was almost horizontal and superglued it in place. This left a sicking great hole in the top which I planked with strips of styrene and with some of the dreaded putty smoothed off the surfaces until they looked good and that was the fuselages done.



There was a small side trip to be made as in the process of shaking the bits out of one box, the inlet bullet fairing went AWOL and could not be found. So I had to make a mould from the other one and manufacture a new fairing from resin.

Making a few estimates of the gap between the fuselages from EB's drawing I guessed at how much of the wings I'd need to make the new centre section, cut them apart and glued the remaining root sections together end to end. Then I added some styrene strip to fill in the gaps at  the leading and trailing edges, and it was time for some PSR work. Was it ever! It took ages to get a nice smooth shape, no thanks to the vageries of the various putties I was using.



Eventually it all worked out fine, and it was time to join the two halves of the aircraft together. Gluing one half to the centre section was simple enough but adding the other needed a jig to ensure the two halves stayed in alignment while the glue set. There was also the small matter of the tailplane.

The Yak-15 was not blessed with an abundance of tailplane span so copying the wing centre section technique wasn't possible, so I made one from scratch with three layers of styrene, a bit of filing and yet more PSR work. Trimming the ends to suit the centre span was the work of a moment, unlike making the tabs to fit the slots in the fins. The left hand slot was a different size to the right hand slot! So I used the tab on one side and butt jointed the opposite end direct to the fin after jigging up the two fuselage halves with Blu-Tack.



When it all dried off it was time to add the outer wing halves and the vestigial tailplane stubs shown in EB's drawing. After that it was a mammoth PSR session, and was it ever mammoth! The wing to fuselage joints were terrible, being out of alignment in all possible directions and eventually I gave up trying for the perfect joint, life's too short and this is, after all, meant to be FUN!



Priming and more sanding went quite normally after masking up the canopy, which had been tinted internally by a very dilute blue paint to match the drawing. Then a little bit of imagineering was needed to mix the paint colours for the upper and lower surfaces before a painting session. Needless to say I found an article about Soviet post-war paint schemes about an hour after I'd finished the job!

Finally I added the landing gear (all five legs of it......) and the few decals before a quick overall spray of matt varnish finished it all off.

The back story is in Alternative Histories, or it will be when I get back from Cosford......

[Tophe]

Wonderful, PR19_Kit!
God bless you... (or Allah or Yahveh or Darwin, depending on which is your one)

[B777LR]

 

[The Rat]

Ho hum, just another BRILLIANT MASTERPIECE! 

[ElectrikBlue]

Wonderful, Kit! 

And the five legs UC with central landing gear that retracts to the right side is simply brilliant!

EB

[sotoolslinger]

That looks cool as heck

[puddingwrestler]

Very nifty! I've always liked those early improvised looking Yak 'hey guys, let's fit a jet to one of our prop airframes!' fighters, and this just takes the biscuit, the cake, the cakeforks, the plates, the table cloth, and the milk jug.
Makes me think I should join in the twin fueselage fun at some stage (which is probably a bad thing!)

[PR19_Kit]

Thank you gentlemen, much appreciated. 

Not quite sure where the 5 legged idea came from, but when I had just the centre wing section built I dry fitted both gear legs to see how they fitted. The darn things were back to back to each other, you could just see daylight between the legs, so figured A S Yakovlev would only have used one of them anyway.

The door for the non-used one is glued in place and PSR'd into non-existence, it NEEDS to be because the doors on those Pioneer 2 kits fit where they touch, which is almost nowhere. 

Just about to post the back story, which hopefully will raise a giggle or three..... 

[Later] I've just read the Cosford 2009 Show thread and noted the delicious irony of where the Yak-15Db was placed on the stand! It's right next door to Van's P-41, which is an UN-doubled P-82 Twin Mustang! Hehehe, laughing myself silly here.......

Back story posted here :-

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,23828.0.html

[PR19_Kit]

Wonderful, Kit! 

And the five legs UC with central landing gear that retracts to the right side is simply brilliant!

EB

EB,

The credit should be yours as well, it was your profile that triggered the whole thing off for me. I could 'see' it in the plastic as soon as I read that thread. 

[ElectrikBlue]

Wonderful, Kit! 
And the five legs UC with central landing gear that retracts to the right side is simply brilliant!
EB

EB,
The credit should be yours as well, it was your profile that triggered the whole thing off for me. I could 'see' it in the plastic as soon as I read that thread. 

I wanted to point out that I like the way you brought your own 'touch' to the initial idea!

EB

[Brian da Basher]

Excellent work, Kit! Seems just a natural for the asymmetric approach! I really like the paintjob too!

Brian da Basher