Šiauliai Air Base, Lithuania 2016 - ground crew prepare a Czech built L-39ZA Osprey for a training flight.
This build has its origins in the spray booth I treated myself to a Christmas ago which permits all-weather use of rattle cans for painting and makes single colour schemes a very easy prospect - ideal for someone who likes the painting stage least of all. Ever since I have been trawling through my kits to find single colour schemes and this one was perfect.
The kit itself is by Mark 1 Models, good quality, but short run kits, normally needing a little fettling. It has some good aftermarket availability, including pitot tubes (not something I normally get, but on this type they are quite prominent and need to be symmetrical) and a lovely resin nose with open avionics bay, a very rare feature in 1/144 kits.
Step one was kit surgery to fit the new nose.
Went on without any problems.
Doors fitted too and canopy masked - no masking sets available for this one sadly.
A coat of primer and one of grey and the painting was finished. Decals were from the box and went on without problem.
I added a ground crew vehicle. I was expecting an ex-Soviet truck, but apparently the Lithuanians shed as much of their Eastern equipment upon emancipation and mostly used Landrovers. I couldn't find any specific references for air force support vehicles, but the paint scheme for this was based on photos of them in Lithuanian Army service. The model itself is a 3d print from Butler's Printed Models.
Final steps - I made an airfield textured base from Tamiya tarmac paste, painted, scored and weathered.
Crew figures were from a North Star modern carrier crew painted to match reference photos.
Ladder is from a Brengun photoetch set.
Then the final step, once the aircraft was very securely glued to the base, the pitot tubes were topped with some 3d decal Remove Before Flight tags from Heroes Models.
Thanks for reading, comments and feedback welcome. This model will be on display at Telford on the SIG144 table, do come and say hi.
