This is my fourth egg plane. The first was an F-4 Phantom, probably 20 years ago. Since then I’ve done two F-16s, and now the F-22. The original Phantom was very much an egg with wings and stabilizers added. This “aircraft” looks pretty un-egglike. Either that or it’s a very weird chicken.

The kit is pretty simple and goes together quite nicely. The fuselage is two pieces, separated top and bottom. The vertical stabilizers are separate parts, the landing gear is 7 parts, including the doors, and the canopy finishes the parts inventory.

I put the fuselage halves together without glue. They include the wings and horizontal stabs. Then I painted the whole thing. I used Neutral Gray for the main color, with Euro 1 Gray for the dark patches and Dark Ghost Gray for the leading and trailing edges. This looks very tactical.

History Brief:

After the Winter War with Finland, the M-72 motorcycle was built in the Soviet Union as a replacement for the two outdated heavy types already in service with the Red Army. As an odd twist of fate would have it, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact provided the necessary legal, political, and economic environments that allowed the Soviets to build the BMW R-71 that had been rejected by the Wehrmacht as the M-72. The short-lived pact agreement included that BMW provide the design, tooling and training to build the motorcycle and military sidecar. Proposed manufacture was to be in three factories located in Moscow, Leningrad, and Kharkov. Only Moscow produced any M-72s prior to the German invasion.

Ukraine’s prolific MiniArt has released this WOODEN FENCE as a follow up to their METAL FENCE. It is a welcome addition to their large line of 1/35 buildings and building accessories. This kit contains 4 of the same sprue that yield 140 grey styrene parts with wood grain molded in that will create a lattice-style fence for civilian, military and railroad modelers, and architects, much like its real counterpart. I believe this is a style of fence that might be seen throughout the Western world and Eastern block, though I’m no expert on fences! Like the real fence, each lattice section connects to a post on each end, which connects to the next section. Each post is topped off with a square crown. Each section has a top rail. You can add single width gates (for people) or double (for vehicles, etc) with the handle, hinge and latching hardware provided. With care, you might be able to assemble it with gates that work.