Ancient Soviet Diecast Warbirds

[Epap]

About three years ago I began to notice rather crude looking 1:72nd scale diecast models of Soviet WWII planes appearing on eBay. These included the I-16, IL-2, Yak-3 and a Beriev MBS flyimg boat, none of which interested me. Then I saw a I-153 and bought it. Like the others, this model appeared to have been manufactured in Russia about 35 years ago and it exhibed all of the defects I had noted in the pictures of the other "replicas" posted on eBay. In this case, the top and bottom halves of the model were held together by a single loose screw and immediately separated. Also, the model was painted a hideous bathroom tile green color, one of its horizontal stabilizers had a large hole and its tail wheel was a joke. But I wanted a diecast I-153 in my collection and eventually bought three of these models which I repaired and painted in different schemes. I thought I'd share some pictures. The first one, below, depicts one of the I-153s in its original form:

[Epap]

The repairs I made included fixing broken windshields, making the spinner and props look more realistic, joining the top and bottom halves of the models securely, filling in various holes and seam gaps, fashioning new tail wheels and, in one case, replacing the main landing gear, which had one "leg" longer than the other, with the appropriate parts from a kit. Here are the three models after repainting:

[Epap]

I should also note that despite their crude nature and sloppy assembly the basic tooling for these models featured a good deal of panel line detail, which was highlighted once I cleaned up the more obvious faults.

[FETT1]

...THESE ARE VERY COOL!!!...NICE

[grwebster]

Continued excellence- well done

[fliegerii]

The repainted models are simply wonderful, excellent work!

Nevertheless I have to defend the original Russian models. Yes, they are freaky assembled and not very stable. Also the used colours are terrible. But even the attempt to reproduce famous Russian planes as die cast (toys) is great and fills a gap. I have one unboxed I-153 placed close to my Dinkys and it looks great.
Don't miss the MIG-15 from this series! It has retractable gear and removeable engine!!!

[Aeronaut]

Don't miss the MIG-15 from this series! It has retractable gear and removeable engine!!!

And very difficult to find!

[richardstarr]

WOW! Absolutely beautiful repaints of these Russian gull wing
biplanes from WWII.

I believe this series of Russian diecast aircraft is circa 1989.
This is a guess, as I have several dozen. I believe they also made a
YAKOVLEV 25 twin engined jet, of which I have several.
They also made the silver SUKHOI 7 jet fighter.
They also came on the green rectangular plastic base.
For me, this was a big deal, because I hadn't seen any others.

Again - beautiful painting and you should be very proud of this.
Have fun with the hobby. Richard

[solumis]

here some pictures.. the only diecast toys i have, because they are great pieces

[grwebster]

as I have several dozen?????????
Really?
I want a mig 15- please pm me
thanks