FROG F308 Mikoyan and Gurevich MiG-3

Rovex F308 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, Rovex Models & Hobbies Ltd, 1977

Red Star RS1/4 Mikoyan and Gurevich MiG-3, Red Star Model Kits Ltd,
distributed by CMS Marketing International, 1983, four kits pack

SCALE MODELLERS' MARKET PLACE
MiG-3
Manufacturer: Red Star Model Kits
Scale: 1:72nd
Price: At present only available as a set of four kits (MiG-3, Yak-3, LaGG-3 and Anatra DS 1) at £9.85.

This kit, and that of the Yak-3, was produced by the same people who made the moulds for Frog/Novo kits in days gone by. The size of the frames, the thickness of the plastic and the style of the kit certainly bears all the hallmarks of Frog, even to the reference number.

The review kit was moulded in dark green plastic but I have seen others in the medium grey which was used by Frog for many years.

The fuselage and fin are split vertically but the port side also carries the complete rudder which enables a reasonably thin trailing edge to be achieved without this being too fragile.

Cockpit detail is limited to floor, seat and control column. The propeller has a shaped short pin as a shaft which enables it to revolve when trapped between the fuselage halves once these are glued together.

The top of the fuselage forward of the cockpit, which carries the twin guns, is a separate component, as are the air intakes on either side of the lower nose.

To obtain the correct dihedral for the wing, the underside component has been moulded as one piece out to near the wing tips. The tips themselves are moulded on to the upper wing halves, again to enable a strong but realistically thin outer wing to be achieved. Some care was required in blending in the joint on the underside but the wing roots on the top side fitted quite well. Only a small amount of filler was needed.

There is a choice of having a lowered undercarriage or of modelling it in the up position, one-piece doors being provided. If undercarriage up is required it will be necessary to raid the spares box for a stand as this item is not provided.

Decals in the kit are provided for three colour schemes. I chose the one in Arctic colours, coded '02' of the 12 IAP, which, incidentally, is illustrated in MacDonald's Soviet Air Force Fighters Part 1. Undersides are light blue (Humbrol HT2) and top surfaces white with red outer wings and spinner plus an aluminium engine cowling. The other markings are for '04' with green/brown upper surface camouflage and '7' with green only upper surfaces.

The only real error I could find on the model concerns the canopy to the rear of the opening part of the hood. This should have only a single central frame and not two as suggested.

Brian L. Thorne

Scale aircraft modelling, May 1984, Vol.6 N.9

Red Star
Red Star Model Kits Ltd., 16 Whitecroft Road, Beckenham, Kent, England BR3 3AG
Period: 1983 to date

Of the 169 Frog moulds completed from 1955 to 1977, only six are believed still to remain in Great Britain. Two of these (the Dennis Ambulance and Firefly Dinghy moulds) are with Hornby Hobbies and the other four with Red Star.

These four are the so-called "Russian" moulds completed by Rovex specifically for use in the USSR, but in the end never sent there. After several attempts to sell them to established kit producers, the Novo receivers finally found a buyer in the Red Star company; a small firm with a rather unusual story behind it.

The story of Red Star goes back to 1982 when Jim Chapman — the subsequent founder of Red Star — took a holiday in the Soviet Union. Before departure he made enquiries to discover where he might be able to purchase kits for his own use. Before he left he heard from the relevant Soviet authority, who also advised him that the possibility of importing a range of ex-Frog kits to the West was under active consideration.

On his return home, he contacted the Soviet import agency with a view to offer advice on the proposed import project. The initial advice took the form of a review of the alternative kits available. This led to further meetings where it became obvious that the agents had rather vague ideas on the choice of suitable kit subjects and not much practical knowledge on matters such as packaging and decals (at one point a peel-off/stick-on type of markings was seriously considered, and some test sheets on white backing paper were printed!). The question of finding a suitable distributor was also pending, but in the end the agents choose Capital Models Supply (CMS). See Novoexport for more details of this operation.

During his enquiries for the CMS import project, Jim discovered the existence of the four moulds later acquired by Red Star. Initially he was asked to cost a scheme to acquire and market these moulds as an ancillary project to the main import scheme. Although his report showed this to be feasible, the Soviets did not wish to proceed until the main scheme was well under way.

As by this time he had invested a considerable amount of effort in the project, Jim Chapman was however reluctant to see the moulds disappear to Eastern Europe. He therefore put forward a proposal to a number of people to see if a consortium could be put together to handle the moulds without Soviet involvement. After a number of false starts and changes in the expected participants, a company was arranged to handle the scheme. This was Glenprime Ltd., but the name was soon changed to Red Star Model Kits Ltd.

By July 1983 they were ready to go into production and on October 31st CMS - who had been appointed sole distributor - took delivery of the first 3,000 of the 7.000 four-kit sets ordered by them. In the event, only about 2.000 of these were sold as sets, the balance being repacked singly in polythene bags with header cards, mainly to meet US orders received by CMS in the spring of 1984. Most sets had a red and white label, but a few of the last ones sold after October 1984 had this replaced by a photocopy.

After CMS went into receivership in August 1984, attempts to get the intended backers of CMS' Soviet import scheme to continue were unsuccessful. Jim then put forward various schemes whereby the Soviets could act as their own distributors for at least a limited scheme. When none of these proposals had elicited much of a response by March 1985, Red Star offered to run such a project on behalf of the Soviets and - to ensure that there was no financial risk to the Soviets — offered to surrender Red Star's moulds as payment. This scheme was initially accepted but then the Soviets changed their mind and progress stopped. Other proposals covered an exchange of moulds to enable production to take place in England but this was also turned down.

Finally a simple offer to purchase kits for cash was put forward. This was accepted in December 1985 and an initial range of nine kits (all from the DFI factory) was agreed upon. Of these, the Maryland was subsequently dropped as a small mould defect was found. It was hoped that a further sixteen types (including the Sea Venom and Whitley) would follow later. In addition, the Soviets offered delivery of 1,000 Shackletons from existing stocks.

But nothing has happened since and Red Star are still waiting for their kits. Apparently the Soviets developed cold feet at the last moment and the future of the deal is somewhat uncertain. It is possible that the recent large exports to Eastern bloc countries (to pay for food imports to the nuclear stricken Ukraine) has taken up much of the available capacity. There are two hopeful signs, however. The first is the Soviets' undeniable interest in acquiring the Red Star moulds. The second is the recent changes in Soviet hierarchy. Fresh approaches have recently been made so there is still hope. . .

In anticipation of the first Soviet deliveries, Red Star commissioned new artwork for the Skua, Vengeance and Ventura. In addition, new decals were designed for the Skua and Ventura. This work was done by Dick Ward of Modeldecal, who also did the previous Red Star decals. Meanwhile, production of the first four kits was (temporarily) suspended in March 1987. By then, total production was as follows: MiG-3 12,500, LaGG-3 11,500, Anatra 9,500 and Yak-3 8,500 pieces. Mould problems have necessitated a few small adjustments, as can be seen when comparing with samples produced by Rovex. A small batch of review samples was made in translucent white and bulk production in medium grey.

FROG model aircraft 1932-1976, R. Lines, L. Hellstrom"

Red Star RS101 Mikoyan and Gurevich MiG-3, Red Star Model Kits Ltd, 84

Russian stars and a cockade.

A newcomer to the realms of kit production is CMS Marketing International (42 Anerley Hill, London SE19) which is issuing a range of kits under the appropriate appellation of Red Star, the first group of four comprising three WWII Soviet fighters and a WWI reconnaissance aircraft. The ancestry of these kits, if a little tenuous, is interesting in that it can be traced back to the oldest kit maker in the plastic business, Frog, whose moulds, after the company was liquidated, mostly found their way to the Soviet Union to be restored to production with Novo, the arrangement being that a quantity of each kit would be exported for sale in the UK.

In the mid-'seventies, when this arrangement was being made, the Soviet negotiators were conscious of the dearth of Russian aircraft among those represented by the Frog moulds and it was agreed that new moulds would be prepared in the UK of types of their choice to introduce a Soviet admixture. Coincidentally, Rovex Limited's master drawings for the new moulds were corrected from material from AIR International's files. Distribution in the UK of the imported Novo kits was in the hands of the Dunbee-Combex-Marx toy group, which, eventually, itself went into liquidation, and thus the Novo/Frog kits were no more. Insofar as the new moulds for the Russian types were concerned, however, it would seem that these never got as far as the Soviet Union as, happily, they have now been released in the UK.

As already stated, three of the kits depict WWII fighters, these being the MiG-3, LaGG-3 and Yak-3, and the fourth represents the WWI Anatra-DS Anasali. The standard of the kits may be summarised as typically Frog, which will be sufficiently descriptive for most modellers with memories of that sorely missed range of kits. For others we would say that they are accurate, quite well detailed and easily assembled kits, without frills, but providing the potential to produce excellent replicas of the aircraft that they represent with some effort on the part of the modeller in adding refinements. The mouldings are clean and the surface detailing adequate without being overdone for the scale. Some refinements are there, such as engraved detail in the wheel wells of the MiG-3 and LaGG-3, and in the cockpit interiors there is sufficient detail, especially in that of the Anatra.

The plastic used for these kits is of a high grade in a medium grey shade, the fighters having between 27 and 30 component parts each and the Anatra biplane 47 parts. The last-named is a fascinating oddity, even among WWI aircraft, although it saw quite extensive service both in pre- and post-revolutionary Russia, and its two-bay wing cellule with individual pairs of interplane struts makes for more complex construction. However, ingenious planning of the kit helps considerably, notably with the fuselage which has a separate one-piece top deck incorporating the tailplane.

The kits are individually packaged in polythene bags with full-colour card backings which include three-view drawings. Top quality dccals are provided in each case, with, for the Yak-3, the insignia of the Normandie-Niemen unit. All markings are well chosen, and for the Anatra-DS they represent pre-revolutionary cockades. At present, these kits are only obtainable direct from CMS Marketing International, but we understand that distributors will be appointed in due course. The WWII fighters are each priced at £2-35 and the Anatra-DS at £2-85, plus postage in each case.

AIR INTERNATIONAL/JUNE 1984

Comment and criticism

When reviewing the four Red Star kits in this column (June issue), we inadvertently inferred that these kits are manufactured by CMS Marketing International. We would like to make it plain that the kits are, in fact, produced by Red Star Model Kits Limited, an entirely separate company to CMS Marketing International which is the sole distributor.
F.J.Henderson

AIR INTERNATIONAL/AUGUST 1984

EMHAR EM2001 Mikoyan and Gurevich MiG-3, 90-s

Cap Croix du Sud MiG-3, 1979

Mikoyan-Gurevich first-born from France

Few would claim that the first fighter designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich duo to achieve large-scale production, the MiG-3, was as efficacious as some of the post-WW II progeny of their design bureau, but its rather squat, nose-heavy appearance undoubtedly endows it with appeal. At least, this must be the opinion of a Paris-based company employing the somewhat unusual appellation of Cap Croix du Sud (Cape Southern Cross), for the MiG-3 has been selected as its debutante, and we can only say that if its standard is an augury for future "Southern Cross" products, then we wholeheartedly welcome this newcomer to the ranks of injection-moulded kit manufacturers.

To 1/72nd scale, this MiG-3 kit comprises 37 neatly moulded component parts in, apart from the two-part canopy, an ivory shade of plastic. The surface detailing consists primarily of finely engraved panel lines and the cockpit interior is provided with a floor, seat, instrument panel (not engraved) and control column, these being sufficient for the limited view obtainable through the small but very clear canopy. The propeller assembly comprises four parts and the undercarriage, with its complex fairing door arrangement, is neatly executed. The exhaust manifolds and air intakes on the cowling sides are separately formed, the wing trailing edges are exceptionally fine, and the whole model has a commendable air of delicacy about it.

A good-quality decal sheet provides six red stars and a selection of individual aircraft numbers. The multi-lingual instruction sheet is explicit and includes a general arrangement drawing with full painting information, while an excellent reproduction of a colour painting appears on the box top. We have waited a long time for a really good kit of this important Soviet fighter. There is, of course, a Forma-Plane vac-form kit of the MiG-3 available and Frog was about to issue a 1/72nd scale kit of the fighter at the time of that company's demise, some examples actually reaching the stockists although not in quantity. This Cap Croix du Sud kit can certainly be recommended, although, as yet, we have no retail price available and no information as to distribution arrangements outside France, but we understand that, in so far as the UK is concerned, negotiations are under way.□
F J HENDERSON

Air International 1979-08, Vol.17, No.2