When I ordered Eduard’s MiG-21MF “Bunny Fighter” last fall, I remember wondering (and probably snarking about it somewhere) who in their right mind would build the garish “Bunny Fighter” scheme.
As it turns out…me.
My Bunny Fighter happened to arrive as I was outside with the kids, and when my son saw the box art, he became obsessed with “the carrot plane”. I knew then that my goose was cooked.
Now, I couldn’t bring myself to throw all the goodies Eduard included at said Bunny Fighter. I mean…they shipped this thing with a full Brassin cockpit, gear bay, wheels, color photo etch, the whole nine yards. No way I’m putting all that into a build that my son will probably find a way to destroy in short order (at four going on five, “look but don’t touch” is a very slippery concept).
So I did what any good modeler would do. I picked up ANOTHER MiG-21MF, this time the weekend Edition.
The original plan went something like this: I’d build the Bunny Fighter “Weekend Edition”-style, learn off it, then throw all the resin and PE and other awesomeness at the Weekend Edition kit.
Well.
When I started poking through the Bunny Fighter’s instructions, I quickly realized I needed to yank out the Weekend Edition manual to make sense of how to pull off the simpler build.
And then, just to keep things straight, I decided it would be easier to build the things in parallel. So…there are now two MiG-21s on the bench. The first will be built in the garish Bunny Fighter scheme, but without all the resin and photo etch.
And the Weekend Edition will be built to the nines, utilizing the resin, photo etch and other goodies from the Bunny Fighter kit, as well as Eduard’s recently released bronze gear struts.
Oh, and Master’s sick-looking pitot tube:
For the scheme, I’ll be yanking one of the Bunny Fighter’s alternate options, a bare-metal Czech Air Force MiG-21MF from 1991.
I’ll probably let the Bunny Fighter run a bit ahead so I can still “go to school” on it, but not too far ahead.
Stay tuned for some quarter-scale MiG goodness…
Great, I built the bis model and the fit was incredible. But one thing to watch: a step easily forms (in my case at least) where the lower wing attaches to the fuselage. Be sure to prevent it.
I meant the rear edge of the lower wing part.
Doog, just wait. Don’t touch remains a slippery concept right into the teen years!