North Vietnamese Yak-3

[johnsjunk]

With Uncle Ho's trail being constantly strafed by F7F-3 Junglecats every night. The North Vietnamese looked to their Soviet suppliers for a jet powered night fighter to deal with the mighty Grumman. What they ended up with were a bunch of old Yak's from North Korea. 

The little Yak's had no radar, but were still in pretty good shape to try and deal with nightly nuisance. Using the old way of radio vectoring the Yak's to take on the F7F's. Pilots were not happy flying blind at night with no moon to aid them. If the Yak was lucky enough find a Junglecat still around, it had little chance of taking down the big cat with no radar. And usually ended up cat food for the mighty Junglecats.

This is an Eduard 1/48th scale weekend kit in 1/48th scale mostly out of the box. I added was True Detail wheels. Paint is Testors Model Master rattle cans.










Thanks for looking..... All comments are welcome.   John

[Go4fun]

An interesting bit of history(?) and a nice aircraft.

[NARSES2]

Nice, particularly like the camouflage scheme

[bobbo]

Very nice!  I wonder if the NVAF might have been able to pick up a few Yak - 17s or - 23s from, maybe, Poland or Czechoslovakia . . .

bobbo

[sandiego89]

[img]..... All comments are welcome.   John

Nice idea and build John- well done!  Only thing I would suggest is make it dirtier, especially over the bright markings.  Maybe a nice wash with burnt umber or black?  Looks like you did some nice weathering on the cowl and exhaust.   North Vietnamese aircraft were maintained in pretty poor conditions, and cleanliness was never high on the list.  Not a nitpick- just a suggestion 

[kitbasher]

Nice!

[ysi_maniac]

Top notch modelling indeed!

[lancer]

That is one very nice looking Yak...

[RotorheadTX]

I like it!! I'll have to do something similar to the Zvezda 1/72nd snap-kit. 

[johnsjunk]

[img]..... All comments are welcome.   John

Nice idea and build John- well done!  Only thing I would suggest is make it dirtier, especially over the bright markings.  Maybe a nice wash with burnt umber or black?  Looks like you did some nice weathering on the cowl and exhaust.   North Vietnamese aircraft were maintained in pretty poor conditions, and cleanliness was never high on the list.  Not a nitpick- just a suggestion 

Thanks, sandiego89 I agree that the markings need to be toned down quite a bit.   I will add a wash over them and add the pic's to this post soon. Thank you for the in put. I greatly appreciate it!  John

[Zeke]

Jungle Cat likes...



Yummy food for Jungle Cat...chomp chomp chomp...

SAE

[The Wooksta!]

Given that the Yak 3 was largely made of wood, how would they have fared in a jungle environment?  Look at the RAF Mosquitos and Hornets which deteriorated fairly quickly. 

And not just humidity - I heard tales of Termites eating through the spars of several Mosquitos and only being found when an inspection hatch was opened and a load of sawdust poured out!

[redstar72]

the Yak 3 was largely made of wood

The late version was full-metal, as well as the jet Yak-15 based on it.