I-153 Khalkin Gol

Polikarpov I-153 belong to crossover generation of airplanes, where was work to maximum enforce proven bi plane configuration with retracting landing gear. It was more popular in the USA, in Soviet Union it seen limited use. First production batch of I-153 was sent to Khalkin Gol where they made success in fight against Japanese airplanes. During the WW2 it was limited use as fighter plane. In model world, this type was not much produced but all kits I have seen, was good kits. ICM from Ukraine do made nice kit of I-153 in 1/48 scale.

The same kit is nicely designed and it come on four frets (one transparent). In general this is very simple kit, not so many parts are there. Parts are so precise and this come into highlight when I mounted wings and struts, it match it perfectly. Very start of the build present mounting of frame construction which is held inside of cockpit. This frame is mounted on floor and it also hold pilot seat and instrument panel. Paint inside is simple, this early pre war machine was simple light grey inside. All colors suggested by ICM was Model Master but you are free to use any other paints, suitable for this work. Instrument panel have nice decals but seat miss belts so you need to make it or get em from somewhere. They are similar to those used in I-16. Cockpit is narrow but side entry flaps can be placed as open or closed so if you like to show cockpit, open position would be of help.

Fuselage consist of two half’s. Details are good but I am confused by some plates mold on one fuselage side. I check out all images I have but I did not have seen this plate. It is possible that ICM include some field modification. Anyway, this plate need to be cut and surface smoothed. Cockpit interior goes onto bottom wing and all together insert in fuselage from bottom. Follow to that is the wing mounting and after that landing gear. I change order of this works as well specific kit I want to do, demand that. My goal was to make sample machine used in Khalkin Gol war. Machine have adopted streaks in two colors and if I place top wing, I would not be able to get in good position to airbrush this mottles. So I decide to paint kit completely and place top wing at the very end.

One fret include ordnance of the machine, there is rockets and bombs as well proper racks for it. During the Khalkin Gol war, I-153 did use RS-82 missiles so I decide to mount missile rails.

There is few machines provided to be finished from kit box and my decision was as mentioned above, to make sample from Khalkin Gol war. This is early painting scheme machines where fabric area was painted in silver and rest are in light grey color. On vertical rudder was number 26 and national insignia was placed in six position. I have observed images of I-153 used in Khalkin Gol and noted that they used two different color for paint over excising camouflage. Impossible to determine real color from black and white photographs but I decide to use brown and green. Most interesting detail is that bottom side of top wing show clearly one dark plain color and I guess that this can be some color for fast recognition in air fight. Before that war, Soviet planes were used in Spanish civil war and they use there wide red bands so I use this as some kind of option that red color was used here in similar reasons.

I decide to do similar work as on real plane, I make it completely in basic pattern, the apply decals and after that spray mottles. First I do was brown mottles and then green. Detail of interest is that one panel on engine cowling have mostly plain color. Possible that airplane was painted during maintenance where this panel was removed so when it was taken back into position, it differs much from the rest of the airframe.

Once painted, I decide to give small wash over surface but really small. Planes did not seen long use in war so they did not have time to get much dirt and surface detoriation. Photo of the subject I did here do show much clean machine. What need to be done is exhaust stains as well stains of oil and exhaust at fuselage bottom, behind engine. Note that ground at Khalkin Gol was much light, so took lighter color if you want to do some wash over tires.

I like this kit. Easy to build, far from perfect, can be upgraded, good details. Provided pattern are interesting for sure. I would like to recommend this kit with pleasure, it is good for all type of modelers.

Srecko Bradic

Note- this built were made for magazine Flieger Revue in 2017., but it was never published