MiG-21 F-13 "red 809" Polish Air Force - Revell 1/72

1
June 11, 2022
And off we go - starting with the ejection seat. The kit's rendition isn't so bad, but as the eduard PE-set offers some improvements I didn't pass the opportunity.
2
June 11, 2022
Therefore the kit's seat needs to be cut in several pieces. Only the head rest, the seat pan and some of the back structure will be saved.
3
June 11, 2022
Like this the MiG build is already starting on the fiddly side of things. But I think the result is worth the effort. However, I won't keep the colour of the precoloured PE parts as my references suggest that most seats appeared in the same, darker grey-blueish colour as seen on early MiG-cockpits. Therefore it will be repainted.
Still, there are photos showing the seat in this lighter grey, for example on ejectionsite.com/sk1seat.htm
4
August 21, 2022
In order to find the correct aforementioned grey-blueish colour I tested several hues from my stash on some plastic sprue. During my research "A-14 steel grey" was mentioned to be the correct colour for early MiG cockpits. However, the corresponding Model Air shade didn't seem to be blueish enough. In the end I chose Model Air Ocean Grey as seen on the right side.
5
August 21, 2022
"Challenge accepted" - eduard offers a way to build up a more detailed jet pipe than the kit's plastic part. Creating a round tube from 2D photo echt parts is always a bit tricky. The white paper cutting has the lenght of the PE part that needed bending and helped to find a suitable bending tool. Most of the time you'll find one item in the household that does the job. In this instance a screwdriver.
6
December 7, 2025
Due to the birth of our kids it has been three years since my last update. This weekend I now had the opportunity to cut some plastic again. Far from finished, I made some progress with the cockpit. The seat now only needs its final finish and I added those MiG-21 F13 typicall yellow tubing, made from lead wire.
7
February 10, 2026
The seat benefits a lot from eduard's PE parts. Of course, seat harness made of etched parts often devides opinion - but I tried my best not to end up with free floating, gravity defying seat belts.
8
February 10, 2026
I thought that I didn't have to fill the back of the head rest because it wouldn't be visible anyways. Turned out to be wrong. So this is something I will have to make up for.
9
February 10, 2026
The side cockpit panels are very nicely moulded and only a few PE parts were added. The white blob is the knob of the thrust lever. The rest of it is moulded to the cockpit tub.
10
February 10, 2026
Everything in place in order to close the fuselage. Only the inlet cone (Quickboost resin part) may need to be glued in place before I can glue the two hull halves together. I'm not sure yet, perhaps I can still slide the cone in position when the fuselage is already closed. I'll figutre it out.
11
February 10, 2026
The back plate has been added from a Brengun PE set as I wasn't happy with this area out of the box. The seat will be added later as it would be prone to damage otherwise. Spoiler alert: Due to the PE beautification, the seat is now too thick and cannot be put into the cockpit once the fuselage is glued together. Another problem for future me.
Some fishing lead was glued on the front gear well, although it is most probably not needed. Did I mention I'm risk averse?
12
February 17, 2026
The idea seemed foolproof: drill a hole through the Quickboost resin inlet cone – at the points already marked on both sides. Then push a piece of steel wire through so that it protrudes just under two millimetres on both sides.
Now the longer end of my drill bit is stuck in the resin and nothing can be pushed through anymore.
13
February 17, 2026
So in the end, I did as Quickboot's little instructions suggested from the outset and glued a small piece of wire to each side. Either way, it's a significant improvement on the kit part – now if I can just get everything assembled.
14
March 13, 2026
It’s starting to look a lot like a MiG-21 now. I couldn’t fit the wings to the fuselage without using some filler. But the most work was actually spent sanding the intake ring into shape.
15
March 13, 2026
The air brake, shown in the closed position, also required quite a bit of filler. The four holes had to be filled as well. Although these holes are visible when the air brake is open, the reference photos I have show that there are four raised studs on the fuselage that fit into these recesses. This means that when the brake is closed, the surface is smooth and free of holes.
16
March 13, 2026
There are a few sink marks scattered across the fuselage. I tackled them with Mr. Dissolved Putty.
17
March 13, 2026
The afterburner ring was made out of lead wire.
18
March 13, 2026
While sanding the intake ring, some material was lost from the upper lip. To repair it, I used Tamiya Epoxy Putty for the first time, which worked well.
19
March 21, 2026
After many "nose jobs," the noses end up looking more unnatural than before. In this case, the opposite should be true. In picture 14, I noticed that, despite all the adjustments made so far, there was still a slight kink where the fuselage meets the jet inlet ring. This has now been corrected, so that this nose now follows the natural contours found on the real thing.
20
April 25, 2026
The horizontal stabilizers were added, and two air intakes on the rear fuselage were modified. The rear section of the cockpit canopy was also glued in place and required some filling.
21
April 25, 2026
Some PE was added to the underside.
22
April 25, 2026
As I read lots of good things on these pages about the gloss black Ultimate Primer I tried it on the centerline tank ( a 3D printed part). I followed the instructions on the bottle and it worked fine, leaving me with a very smooth finish as a base for the metal colour.
23
April 25, 2026
Up to now I had always used Alclad metal colours with very nice results - but also with much "oudor nuisance" or a really bad smell, to put it bluntly. So I tried Vallejo's acrylic alternative. The result looks very nice but, of course, doesn't reach the Alclad shine. I'm still undecided if I'm going to use Vallejo or Alclad on the fuselage...

Comments

59 11 June 2022, 15:29

11 June 2022, 15:35

Bernd Korte Author
Welcome, Oliver!
My new project has now officially started 🙂 I decided to go with Revell's MiG-21 F-13 kit, despite there being a newer and - as I have heard - better version from Modelsvit. However, the Revell is of some sentimental value to me. It was one of the most anticipated new toolings from Revell back in 2004/2005 when I worked for a few weeks as an intern at Revell Germany in Bünde. It's almost curious that so much time has passed since then and now the Revell kit is "old" and surpassed by an even better offering from another manufacturer.

2 11 June 2022, 15:44

Hanno Kleinecke
That seat is absolutely superb !

11 June 2022, 16:47

Juergen Klinglhuber
Bin dabei,...

11 June 2022, 18:02

Cuajete
Following!

11 June 2022, 18:17

Robin (WhiteGlint)
👀 Watching.

11 June 2022, 20:17

Maciej Bellos
In!

12 June 2022, 03:37

Thomas Kolb
Wow, I love the MiG-21. Following for sure! Almost an entire seat made of pre-painted PE, I don't think I have ever seen that before. Cool!

12 June 2022, 08:19

Matthew A
🐻

12 June 2022, 09:38

Bernd Korte Author
Thank you guys! It almost hurts that l'll need to repaint the seat in the cockpit colour once it's finished. Unfortunately the small printed-on stencils will therefore be lost. Perhaps my spares box has some fitting replacement decals to offer.

12 June 2022, 09:52

Marius
Following too!

As a small note (maybe you are not that far yet and likely you knew it already), the MiG-21F-13s never had the cockpit in that Turqoise colour by default as suggested by the Eduard PE set. All F-13s and PFMs had a dark-grey interior when leaving the factory and only those overhauled by the guest country might have had variations or eventually repainted much later in turqoise...but I have no idea which countries did that. I've heard for example that the Hungarian F-13s might have been repainted in a very bright green in the cockpit shortly after delivery (not 100% sure if true).

When Eduard designed this PE set, they probably didn't do their research well.

Btw, I had the same PE set some 2 years ago and I remember the pain with the almost full PE ejection seat 🙂).

13 June 2022, 06:05

Marius
And a short comment about the Modelsvit kit because you mentioned it: it's a disaster, DON'T buy it! Check my review here at the bottom of this page:
MiG-21F-13 (ModelSvit 72042, 1:72)
and some photos from the build process (the first kit in many years I threw in the trash on purpose):
MiG-21F-13 - Vietnam | Album by Redicus (1:72)

The MiG-21F13 from Modelsvit is a short run and in terms of quality has nothing to do with their great Mirage kits.

Or also check this second review here which comes to the same conclusion:
themodellingnews.com..scale-build.html?m=1

The Revell kit with all of it's flaws is still by far the best MiG-21F-13 in 1:72 and you did the right choice, provided that you replace or correct the nose of course. Yes, the Revell kit is missing a lot of details, the Modelsvit kit has much nicer cockpit and landing gear, but overall none of these are relevant when you have to completely rescribe the fuslage and parts of the wings because of excessive sanding and puttying. It feels like scratchbuilding all along with the Modelsvit and it really kills the mood if you don't know it's THAT kind of kit beforehand.

3 13 June 2022, 06:12

Bernd Korte Author
Thanks for the heads up, Marius! I wasn't aware that the fit of the Modelsvit kit was so bad!
Yes, I already noticed that the PE set's interiour colour is not correct. I believe the right colour is called A-14 steel grey.

13 June 2022, 14:59

Ricardo Reis
Good start, following! 👍

19 June 2022, 13:08

Robert Podkoński
I am a little late, but from now I will follow your build report dilligently, Bernd! 😉

21 August 2022, 14:56

Bernd Korte Author
Thanks Ricardo!
Progress has been very slow over the summer. But that's not the kit's fault!
Some time was used to pick the grey-blueish cockpcit colour. That's settled now as you can see in the photos.

21 August 2022, 14:56

Cuajete
Good start, Bernd 👍

21 August 2022, 17:34

Alec K
Welcome back Bernd. And congrats on fatherhood, a BIG job. I recall not returning to the hobby for 10+ years after, so you are doing great 🙂👍

1 7 December 2025, 14:25

Jan Peters
Following this one 👀

1 7 December 2025, 14:29

Bernd Korte Author
So, it only took me three years to update this build thread. The reason being a good one: in November 2022 my two kids were born, taking up most of Mum's and Dad's time. This weekend I now had the unique opportunity to revive my MiG build, and it felt very good. I'll have to live off that for quite a while now. After all, who knows when things will be able to continue here again...

4 7 December 2025, 14:29

DerMattes
Schaut gut aus, Following 👍

1 7 December 2025, 14:30

Robert Podkoński
Congrats, Bernd!

1 7 December 2025, 14:33

Felix
Glückwunsch zu den Kindern, wie kommst du da noch zum bauen? 🙂 Der Sitz sieht aber fantastisch aus, Bernd! Cool, geht es weiter.

1 1 February, 08:31

Bernd Korte Author
Danke! Das klappt manchmal abends, wenn die Kinder schon schlafen und sonst nichts mehr anliegt. Also nicht all zu oft 😅

2 1 February, 08:55

Moreno Baruffini
What a wonderful news! Congrats, and I totally understand you, fatherhood is a big job and every moment is important! 👍🏻💪🏻

2 1 February, 08:58

Mid Franconian
Na da nehm ich gleich Platz!

1 1 February, 09:08

Matthew A
Well done dad

1 1 February, 10:51

Nicolas
👀

1 1 February, 12:54

Alec K
Glad to see you found time to model during fatherhood. I only modeled with my wallet and in my head 😂
That said, kids and spouse do come first 👍

5 1 February, 15:00

Łukasz Gliński
Joining the party, seems like I missed the first part 👍

1 1 February, 15:17

Bernd Korte Author
„I only modeled with my wallet and in my head" - that's also a very good description of my modelling life in the last couple of years, Alec!

4 2 February, 08:44

Alec K
Yep, that's how that goes 😅😭😭

1 2 February, 15:36

Łukasz Gliński
Sometimes such periods happen - longer or shorter ones, like to me now, that's life 😉

3 2 February, 16:51

Bernd Korte Author
What can I say, some pieces were glued, some colour spoiled, some progress made 🙂

5 10 February, 20:05

Bernd Korte Author
A month has passed since the last update, and there's some progress to report. I'm now very pleased with how the intake ring looks. Anyone familiar with the original part from the Revell kit will know why.

4 13 March, 20:43

Thomas Kolb
Lovely to see this project being resumed!

1 13 March, 20:50

Guy Rump
Looking great, following (I'm late I know!)

1 13 March, 22:01

Cuajete
I agree with Thomas and Guy 👍
Well done so far!

1 14 March, 19:03

S M
Following late!

1 20 March, 21:59

Desert Marlin
Looks great so far!!!

1 20 March, 22:28

Bernd Korte Author
Thanks for your interest in this build! It is moving forward slowly but steady.

The story goes that when the designer of Revell's MiG-21 F13 was measuring a museum aircraft that had been jacked up, he didn't have a ladder on hand, so he didn't correctly document the contours on the upper surface of the aircraft's nose, which led to the model's well-known flaw in that area.
Is this story true or just a tall tale? Maybe I'll have a chance to ask about it at the Revell booth next weekend at the EME in Lingen 😄

4 21 March, 20:48

Cuajete
I'd also like to know if that story is true, Bernd. I hope you can tell us something about it 😄
Good job with the nose job 👍

3 22 March, 18:42

Bernd Korte Author
What can I say, Revell was at the show but every time I came across their booth they were always occupied in busy discussions. So the mystery of the botched MiG nose stays a mystery for now...
I planned to use the MiG as a testbed for Vallejo's Metal Colors. Now that I have already spent quite some time correcting the nose and other things I'm not so sure anymore about "sacrificing" the model as a test: The drop tank looks nice in Vallejo but would probably be even nicer in Alclad...
By the way - has anyone tested Vallejo's new True Metallic Metal colours with an airbrush? ChatGPT tells me they are more realistic than the Metal Color range...

4 25 April, 21:04

Project info

MiG-21 F-13 "red 809"

23 images

1:72

In progress

1:72 MiG-21F-13 Fishbed C (Revell 04346)

1:72 MiG-21F-13 Fishbed C (Eduard 73260)

1:72 MiG-21 F-13 (Fishbed C) - Pitot Tube (Master AM-72-045)

1:72 MiG-21F-13 Fishbed-C - Air Intake (Quickboost QB 72 012)

1:72 MiG-21 Fishbed - Ladder & Chocks (LP Models LP72010)

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21F-13 Fishbed-C

Wojska Lotnicze (Polish Air Force 1962-1990)
803
1964

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