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The Aero
L-39 Albatross is a Czech trainer/light attack aircraft now
used worldwide. In 2003 the U.S. Air Force's Air Force
Flight Test Centre at Edwards AFB obtained one on a six
month lease to gauge it's suitability to replace the retired
T-39 Sabreliner. The intention was to use the L-39 for
low-speed chase missions for the CV-22 and RQ-4 programmes,
as well as acting as a qualification aircraft for test pilot
students. In the long term, Edwards is also considering
using the L-39 for electronic warfare testing missions, a
role once carried out by the five-seat T-39, which is now in
the Davis-Monthan "boneyard". The L-39 was supplied by Teton
Warbird Training of Driggs, Idaho I wanted to build a
model of this aircraft when I first saw it in a copy of
International Air Review magazine. The two kits available
were by Eduard and KP. Since the Eduard kit was nearly 3
times the price of the KP kit, I went for the KP version and
also used a Pavla resin interior set. The KP kit itself
proved not to be the easiest model to build. The fit was not
too good, especially the wing-to-fuselage joins on both top
and bottom of the fuselage. I had to modify the interior of
the fuselage to get the Pavla set to fit, and added a small
amount of additional interior detail, mainly behind the
seats which were also provided in the Pavla kit. I had major
problems with these seats, as they appeared to have been
cast mismoulded, and both headrests snapped off during
assembly!
Having got the fuselage and wings together, the canopy
provided a major source of irritation - it did not fit at
all well and was pinched in. Trying to spread this out
whilst gluing it to the fuselage resulted in stress cracks
along the canopy which I've had to live with, as I was not
aware of any aftermarket replacement. It wasn't a brilliant
fit but looks reasonably OK.
Turning to the colour scheme, I had originally decided to
make the decals myself using my Alps MD-1000 printer.
However, I was lucky in that Vince Maddox came to the rescue
and provided a complete set of markings for L-39C 00-439
which saved me the trouble of doing it myself!
I started with a number of coats of gray automotive
primer and followed up with white primer. I then used
Halfords Appliance White from a spraycan to paint the bulk
of the aircraft. I hand-painted the red panel on the nose
and wing-tip tanks and then sprayed the black anti-glare
panel using black automotive primer. Before you ask, I've
had a lot of problems with dust and prefer to use spray-cans
wherever possible. Whilst not the most elegant of solutions,
it does work!
A couple of coats of Future floor wax served as a base
for the Vince Maddox decals. I had to source the footstep
markings from black decal striping and I also replaced the
VM stars'n'bars with those from a Bare-Metal sheet. I then
finished up with a couple more coats of Future to seat the
decals.
Final details were the undercarriage from the kit - the
L-39 is unusual in that the gear doors are closed unless the
gear is extending or retracting. I used black and white
plastic card for the various aerials and pins for the pitot
probes on each wing. Bare-metal foil polished with graphite
was used to represent the metal jet-pipe area.
All-in-all, I was quite pleased with the result. HOWEVER
- I should have started with the Eduard kit NOT the KP one! |
