This is quite an old model from the 70s, and when you open the box its age really shows – but there is something I really love about this kit…

The Kit
The detail is very poor, and although I’m not one of those modellers who compares every dimension with the real aircraft and gets upset if it isn’t spot-on – as I understand it the model isn’t that accurate. That is what I love about the kit though – it is the perfect illustration of how special the Mig-25 was when it appeared. The reason this kit is so ‘vague’ is that at the time we knew very little about the aircraft.

It was top secret and scared the pants off the West (as I understand/remember it) because it was faster than anything we had. The Americans managed to get hold of an actual Foxbat when a Soviet pilot did a Hunt for Red October and landed his aircraft on a US airbase – but very little of what they learned was made public – and I think the model was largely guess work based on the few photos they had.

So, if you want to make this kit embrace the vagueness – because it’s a pain in the whatsit if you don’t!

The Build
I didn’t worry too much about the accuracy and lack of detail in the cockpit – but the raised panel lines did bother me, so the first thing I did was to rescribe all the panels. If you have ever done this you will know it is a real pain to do – but for some kits that don’t have a modern version it is the only option if you want a good result. I used a pin in an old propelling pencil and a fair bit of Dymo tape – working over the top of and/or alongside the raised panels to scribe the lines (I will probably do a video on this at some point). Once done, it’s just a case of sanding off the raised lines – but that tends to fill the panels, so you end up scraping this out and then smoothing off – which fills the lines again!

After that the build went fairly smoothly, the vague lines mean it’s easy to fill and sand where the fit is not everything you would hope for, and the finished build provided a decent base for painting.

Painting & Decals
Again – there’s not a lot of detail here – so it is just a case of painting a nice Soviet grey and then painting the nose and a few panels in black and picking out the engine tailpipes and cover panels in silver.

The decals went on fine with the usual softeners, and are the lovely sparse soviet-era red stars and just a big red number 49 on the side. There are a few warning signs etc over the rest of the plane to give it a bit of depth – but basically the whole thing is as sparse as Moscow apartment in the 70s.

Weathering
I used pre-shading and a water-based wash to pick out the panel lines, and laid a bit of gold, black and metallic blue over the engines to give some sense of heat. There didn’t really seem much point doing more than this with the basic nature of the detail (I’m desperately trying not to use the word ‘vague’ again).

Conclusion
All in all I was really pleased with the result – I know it isn’t going to fool anyone into thinking it’s the real thing – but it exactly represents how I felt about the Foxbat at the time…

No detail, beautiful lines, and an over-riding sense of sinister Soviet menace!