MiG-15bis Al-Qūwāt al-Gawwīyä al-Miṣrīyä

OK let's continue with something fresh.

The model presents an Egyptian MiG-15bis from1956 Suez crisis located on Sinai peninsula.

There is quite some controversy about the style and colors of the old Egyptian markings from that period. Some say that the stripes were the same color as roundels (green) and that there was a white spacing between the black/green lines... 

After an intensive and interesting debate with follow modellers we came to following conclusions:

When Egypt received its 15's they added 2 black stripes on the fuselage and 3 stripes on the wings (the middle one was thicker).

But AFTER the union with Syria and later Yemen (United Arab States), they painted the spaces between the stripes in white. Further on, they changed that with the red/white/black roundels and flags, similar as the ones we see today.

The picture below shows a MiG-15bis in those markings shot down on 31st October by Israeli Mystere deep inside Israeli held territory.

The pilot tried to advance further to reach the Egyptian lines and he did manage that on foot after his plane crash landed. The plane was seized and studied by the Israeli and later publicly displayed.

All the Egyptian 15s were in fact Czech made S-103 and a few CS-102s delivered in '55/'56. Officially 120 examples were delivered.

source:acig.org

The kit is 1/48 Trumpeter with the addition of Hi-Decal line and Aeromaster stencils. The construction itself was quite difficult due to bad fitting of the front part(gun bay & air intake). It was painted with two shades of Alclad. The only critique goes to the Hi-decal line which over-sized the roundels making them too large, especially the moon symbol inside them, which should be way less thicker. I can't pass by without mentioning the construction error regarding the antenna cable, which should lead directly into the starboard fuselage, known on later variant of MiG-15bis.