Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle - exotic model kits

Some very aircraft modelling info about a lesser known Russian Aircraft
Read the full article in Model Aircraft Monthly, January, 2002

"For many years there have not been any good models of the famous Ilyushin jet bomber. The kit produced in East Germany by VEB Plasticart was in 1/100th scale and is more of a toy than a scale model. The kits of Airfix and Cruver (both in 1/72nd) were poor quality and had many faults. The first acceptable plastic model of a 'Beagle' was a kit produced in 1997 by the Czech company Bilek. Later, the same model was offered by Italeri (#060). This model is not that good dimensionally however. Based on Soviet sources (Aviatsya i Vremya' magazine) the dimensions of the Il-28 were: length 17.65m, wing-span 21.45m. The fuselage of the Bilek kit is 4mm too short and the wing span is 5mm short. However the shapes of the main elements (fuselage, wings, stabilisers) are correct. The panel lines are engraved, but are not as fine as those in Hasegawa, Tamiya or Fujimi models.



The reason for this is low-volume technology used to prepare the tooling. The other disadvantage is that during construction the kit is not very ‘user friendly', with a lot of filler being needed. Especially difficult to construct are the engine nacelles, bomb bay in the open position and clear nose parts. Also the level of detail is not a strong point of this kit. There are many small parts, but the quality is far from good. The cockpit, bomb bay, landing gear, undercarriage bays and tail turret are too simple and lack many details. Fortunately the corrections can be made using photo-etched detail sets from Eduard (#72-219) and PART (#S72-015 & S72-016). However using these extra details is very hard work and, I think, for experienced modellers only.

The decals of the Italeri version are of good quality and offer four options (Soviet Union, Poland, Finland and East Germany). The kit shown with this feature is in Polish markings, all surfaces are in natural metal. The red tactical number is typical for Polish aviation in the 1950s and 1960'. It's also worth remembering that the Polish company HiDecal Line produce a very interesting decal sheet for the Ilyushin. This sheet, 72-043, offers decals for five aircraft; North Vietnamese, Nigerian, Hungarian (RT version), Polish (training version) and East German (training version), and the quality of these decals is very high.

In 1998 Bilek produced the training version, Il-28U ‘Mascoť. This model has similar advantages and disadvantages to the model of the bomber version and Paval produce a nice resin cockpit detail set for it.

In 2000 the Chinese company Trumpeter started production of the ‘Beagle' in 1/72nd scale. This company offers two kits; Il-28 and Chinese version H-5 (export designation B-5). These kits are very similar to the Bilek/Italeri bersions and all the main faults are copied.
In 1/48th scale two kits of the 11-28 have been announced. Combat Models from the USA are preparing a vac-formed kit, while Collect-Aire Models are working on a resin and metal kit. Both of these should be available soon."