Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1bis twin pulse jet

[frank2056]

I think almost every modeler has a copy of the BI-1 rocket fighter. It was made by several Eastern European companies and eventually made its way into the West. Scalemates lists my copy as made by Modelist:



It is a bad kit. I have two copies; both are flashy and one had a short shot fuselage half. Not that it mattered; the fit and flash is very poor. The kits have rattled around my junk kit box for almost 30 years.

I saw a kit of the OKB Chelomey 16Kha "Priboy", a twin pulsejet Russian knockoff of the V-1:



It looked like an interesting design. While letting my cat Felix visit the model closet, I saw a kit of the Me328 in the stash and that got me thinking; the Huma version came with two pulse engines... I no longer had the Huma kit (built it and gave the built-up away) but I remembered that I had two Argus pulsejets from the Huma He280 kit.
I thought that combining the two Argus engines (with longer exhaust pipes) and the BI-1 would be easy... I was wrong. The engine modification was no problem, but the BI-1 is just such a bad kit. I struggled throughout the build and painting. In the end I decided to just finish it before it ended flying into a wall.
The paint job is awful. The engines decided to break off the rear mount and wobble out of place while I was positioning the model.

The number is the year and month I finished this POS:




I added a better seat, instrument panel and control stick... but why?


Thanks for reading; I'm just glad it's done.

[Wardukw]

That's cool Frank even for a gigantic pile of crap ..your work wasn't wasted it would seem 🤙👍

[Rick Lowe]

A definite contender for the 'Silk Purse' award...   

[Old Wombat]

Obviously made at OKB Gulag!

At least you tried!

And it ain't that bad.

[DogfighterZen]

I think that looks very cool! Love the paint job on the pulse jets.  

[NARSES2]

I think that looks very cool! Love the paint job on the pulse jets.  

As do I, I think that paint job really stands out   

[Joe C-P]

So did the engines pulse in time to one another, or did they alternate?

We whiffers are a persistent bunch!  Congratulations on getting it done despite itself.

[frank2056]

Thanks guys. This wasn't a fun build. The non-kit parts were OK - The old Huma engines were easy to put together and modify, thanks to the molding and the soft Huma plastic. I added the slats in the front. The main landing gear wheels were also from an old Huma kit. The vertical rudders were made from styrene sheet, sanded into an airfoil shape, then cut to side.

The kit itself was a dog and if someone has a copy, I would fully understand if they cut it up into pieces and dunked it in acetone or liquid cement to make styrene goo - it would at least be useful.

I have a second kit that I modified to take an old Heller Me-262 canopy. It was pretty far along, but the shortcomings of that molding (lots of flash, plus short shot wings and fuselage) pretty much destined it to the never to be finished pile.

[killnoizer]

Nice Design !!
Looks great .

[chrisonord]

That looks really good, and the fact you had a fight with it to get it built, and won makes it all the more satisfying. Hats off to you sir.

[Dizzyfugu]

Cool-looking. 

[frank2056]

If anything, this build reminded me of how good the Huma kits were. Roughly the same era and level of detail but so much better and easier to put together than the old Russian kit. If the kit parts could talk, the Huma ones would be "Ja sicher!" for whatever I wanted to do, the Russian parts were "нет!"

 I'm tempted to build one of the Huma kits in my stash.

[NARSES2]

Yes, it's a shame Huma went by the board. They were nice builds. I've only got a couple left.

[PR19_Kit]

I've still got an unbuilt Triebflugal in The Loft, that's just crying out to be Whiffed!    

[su27rules]