The Soviet Union introduced the NKL-16 Aerosan during World War II, based on the earlier NGL-6. It was constructed from plywood and powered by a radial airplane engine. It ran only on skis and was designed for frozen lakes or snow-covered tundra.

This Trumpeter kit contains 151 parts on nine sprues, a clear window sprue, a short piece of copper wire, and a whopping 86 photo etched parts. Most of these PE parts are for the mounts on the skis and door hinges. The copper wire is to be cut to make ski cables, an engine part, and a probe for the front. We get a detailed dashboard to be used with the only decals with the kit – the five gauges on the dash, which you can kind of see through the windshields.

The kit is packed in a heavy duty box with parts separated in compartments, and delicate parts wrapped in foam. Construction starts with the four skis, with the option to place the other skis as spares on the roof. This requires a lot of photo etch work and is, by far, the slowest part of construction. The interior is next, but most of this is hidden except the dash and steering wheel. You can position the doors open, but then you would have to scratchbuild some more interior detail.

My first and only assembly problem was the roof being too long for the body. I had to trim the rear a few millimeters to prevent the top from bowing. The engine is very detailed and quick to build; just pay close attention to how the five cylinders mount onto the main engine. I did drill out the cylinder exhaust tubes. The main propeller and spare are nicely detailed. I painted them with dark yellow and used oil paint and a sponge to create the wood texture.

The rear engine framework guards built up without problem and aligned perfectly with the engine mounts. I really thought this would be a problem, but was very pleased with how Trumpeter designed this.

A color paint scheme sheet is included, but it is for only one design, all white, so I painted mine all white after a heavy preshading of black. I added some streaking on the sides and engine grime in the back.

I would like to thank Squadron for the review sample and IPMS-USA for the review opportunity.