DML 1:72 JIAN JI-5/MIG-17F FRESCO

Reviewer: Peter Knight  (pknight@macquarie.net.au)

The Jian J-5 is essentially a Chinese licensed built version of the MiG-17F Fresco which served a number of air forces other than China. The MiG-17 was built as a day-fighter to replace the MiG-15 which had some shortcomings that were found out in the Korean war.

DML have released this in an injected plastic kit with finely engraved panel lines and reasonable quality.  It's about as near perfect in accuracy as you can get as far as I'm concerned although the construction phase is typical of DML kit quality with frustrating fits and care needed to be taken to get a reasonable finished product.

Wings and rear tailplanes cause the most of the problems - aside from the nose which I will get onto - and need a bit of assistance to fit nice and snuggly.   But they are in scale which is worth a bit of frustration.  Slight amount of flash is in the kit and a little bit of cleaning is required. many parts need a touch of sanding and filler to achieve the optimum result.

The nose is worse construction phase and makes for a frustrating fit. The lower half is separate to the fuselage and the whole process is further compounded by the fact that you need a weight in the nose to prevent it from tail-sitting, and this particular kit likes to rear up like a funnel web! I weighted the nose with some melted lead shaped to a mould I made quickly so it would sit nicely in the model and this barely did the trick. Since there is very little space in the nose to place a weight, if you can't melt down lead in your workshop which I am able to do, then you will need to shove in as many ball bearings or smaller weights as you can.  When you get the kit you will see what I mean.

Having finished the construction phase I moved onto painting it and finished it in a few shades of natural metal with a bit of pastel shades to weather it.   Decals supplied in the kit are reasonable quality with insignia for China, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Syria and Veitnam - the last two being camouflaged with the previous three being natural metal finishes.

On the shelf the first thing that surprises you is how small it is, especially when my Vietnam version was placed next to an RF-4B but it does look very nice and I can't really flaw its accuracy.  This is a pretty nice kit, one of the best Fresco's on the market, highly recommended if you can get over the frustrating fit problems and the nose weight challenge.

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MiG-17F of the Chinese AF similar to one produced in the kit