L-159 Alca - Balad Air Force Base, Iraq, 2016
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:59 pm
June 2016, the Iraqi Air Force carried out its first bombing missions against the jihadists of Daesh near Nawija in Federal Iraq using Mk82 bombs dropped from the Czech built L-159 Alca.
One of the brave pilots signed up to this mission, aware of the horrific results should they be forced down over the extremist's territory, has his photograph taken for posterity in front of his jet, while a rather impatient mechanic waits to start the preflight checks.
The kit is the Minwing L-159 which comes in a boxed multischeme Czech AF edition and some bagged versions. This particular edition comes with markings for a single Iraqi AF airframe.
There is a light but decently represented interior, standard for this scale, important because of the very large canopy.
The kit goes together fine until the wings are fitted which leave a giant gap, requiring a lot of filler and a difficult spot to sand.
After that, she did sit on the bench for a while until last week I decided to make a push to get her completed in time for a show.
Painting was quite straight forward, light grey unders, med sea grey upper and a factory standard splodge of medium gunship grey across the top.
Decals were impressive, never seen so many in scale outside the Revell Typhoon - it took several sittings but they were very nicely done and just the right balance between thickness and transparency.
The final touches were the addition of some tiny aerial fins, mk82 bombs from an aftermarket set (the boxed edition of this kit does include them in resin) and pitot tubes from Master. Not something I normally bother with, but they are quite prominent on this type and need to be symmetrical so I went with the turned brass approach.
This completed the model. I didn't add any weathering as photos show these in pristine condition.
The base is a 10x10cm canvas with Tamiya pavement texture brushed on, then sprayed using a Dan Models stencil from Ukraine just to add the feel of a modern airfield. A light pigment dusting made for a desert flavour.
I didn't get any photos of this in process, but these are some shots of the last one I made using the same technique instead.
Figures are from the excellent Heroes Models collection of 144th resin, a photographer, modern pilot and a mechanic.
So the final photos
The vignette made its show debut just 12 hours after completion at the South Cheshire show in Nantwich and will be on the SIG144 show circuit for the rest of the year.
