Catacean Creation

The Aero L-29 Delfin (Dolphin) was a military jet trainer and light attack aircraft manufactured in Czechoslovakia by Aero Vodochody.

- Andy McCabe

L-29 Delfin

Kit No: (Ref.7096)

Scale: 1/72

Type: Injection Moulded Plastic

Manufacturer: Eduard www.eduard.com

Its first flight was on the 5th April 1959 and it was introduced in 1961 with the primary users being the Soviet Air Force, Czech Airforce, Bulgarian Airforce and the Egyptian Airforce between 1963 and 1974. A total of 3665 were built.

The L-29 was powered by a single Motorlet M- 701c 500 turbojet engine giving the aircraft a maximum speed of 510mph, it had a crew of two and could be armed with two 7.62mm machine guns on two hardpoints, eight air-to-ground rockets or two 100kg bombs.

The Eduard kit consists of four sprues of grey and one clear sprue of injection moulded plastic, one colour photoetch fret, one small acetate sheet, one canopy mask set, two decals sheets and the painting and marking guide booklet. Colour call-outs are for GSI and Mission Model paints. Also supplied for this review was Eduard’s photoetched detail set (Ref. 72705), which is loaded with extra detail.

Construction

The build begins by assembling the ejection seats. These are made up from plastic and etched detailing from the additional set and when finished look really busy. The instrument panels are next, and these can be made up from pre-painted photo-etched parts or the plastic parts with decals. The former gets my vote every time.