COBI MiG-15 Fagot Set 2416

COBI's MiG-15 is a 1:32 model built from 504 blocks, in Soviet colours. The wheels move and the canopy opens for the included detailed pilot figure. A display stand with a plate carrying the set name and national marking is included. All markings are printed; no stickers.

The pilots were not allowed to speak Russian

In MiG Alley over north-western Korea, American pilots flying F-86 Sabres found themselves against MiG-15s that were being flown far better than North Korean or Chinese training could account for.

They were right. The Soviet Union sent its own air divisions to Korea — experienced pilots, many of them veterans of 1945 — and flew combat missions there for three years. The aircraft wore Chinese or North Korean markings, the pilots wore Chinese uniforms, and they were under standing orders not to speak Russian on the radio and never to fly over the sea or far enough south to risk capture.

American intelligence knew. Radio intercepts made it obvious within months. Both governments chose to say nothing, because the alternative was acknowledging that Soviet and American forces were shooting at each other — which would have made Korea something other than a limited war.

The Soviet Union admitted it in the 1990s. Around 1,100 Soviet pilots served, and several hundred were killed.

The aircraft

The first mass-produced Soviet jet fighter, and a genuine shock to the West: fast, well armed with two 23 mm and one 37 mm cannon, and able to out-climb the Sabre. It could not turn with one, and the Sabre had a better gunsight and better-trained pilots on average.

The engine was a Rolls-Royce Nene, sold to the Soviet Union by the British government in 1947 and then copied without a licence.

In the COBI range

COBI makes the same aircraft as the Czechoslovak S-102 and the Polish Lim-1. Set 5823 is the later MiG-17, and 2424 the MiG-17 of the USS Intrepid collection.

Specifications

Pieces: 504 · Figures: 1 pilot · Scale: 1:32 · Display stand and nameplate · No stickers