1/72 Mastercraft Su-22M3 Fitter  

by Tamás Skriba

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  Hungarian Holiday

 

The Fitter-family was always my favourite from the Russian jets, especially the later variants. In the Hungarian Air Force served the M3 variant at the Taszár air force base, by the 31th KAPOS Tactical Fighter Wing, from 1983 unnutil their withdrawal. I wanted to show the robust form of the aircraft so I made it with closed landing gears in flight with a full load.

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This company makes a lot of different types of the Fitter family. This kit (cat. Nr. D-14) was the most similar to the hungarian ones.  The fuselage has to be modified a little bit because the Hungarian Fitters had a different engines from the standard M3-s, and there are the AAM missile rails seen on the later M4 variant.

The Hungarian Fitters camuflage is a big challenge for a modeller. I needed to study a lot of pictures taken from the original to identify the colours and the contours. The pilot was taken from an old ESCI kit, the armament is from the Dragon accessories. The aircraft is armed with 4 UB-32 rocket pods (what a fire power), 2 R-60 missiles and 2 H-25ML missiles. The decals are from the box. 

Tamás

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Photos and text © by Tamás Skriba