Soviet A-90 Orlyonok

Soviet A-90 Orlyonok

As part of the IPMS Ottawa March contest, the challenge was put out to build anything Zvezda (Russian plastic model firm). After searching about, this strange beast came to mind. Designed and built in the 1960's and 70's the A-90 is a ground effect vehicle based amphibian designed to carry troops and a smaller AFV. It has a huge twin contra propeller and turboprop on the tail for cruise power and 2 turbofans in the nose to provide directional thrust under the wings and large flaps for lift.

The Zvezda kit (#7016) is a 1/144 scale and overall fairly basic in its build detail. The greater challenge comes in filling and sanding the wing roots and fuselage seams as well as building up the inside of the nose air intakes.

There isn't a great deal of panel detail on the overall kit and at 1/144 scale I would have expected much to start with. There are relatively few images online of the A-90 since only 3 or 4 were ever made or used in service by the Soviet Navy.

The build is Out of Box with the exception of adding radio antennae wires (stretched sprue painted with black permanent marker) and the windshield antenna made from sprue. This part was too complicated to do accurately and looks poor in close up (the whole assembly is barely 4-5mm across). The windscreen is a poor fit to start with and I masked by hand with tape.

 The red marking around the jet intakes is a real pain (if anyone has good tips for curved masking, I am all ears!) and filling and sanding inside the intakes was exceptionally hard as can bee seen by the rough finish below.

The tail section is massive with alot of recessed panel lines but overall lacks the detail that it could have had. The real aircraft has numerous APU exhaust ports and rudder details but these are simply left as panel lines. I could have drilled them out and scratch built but left it as is.

Big red nose.

I pre-shaded the panel lines with black testors (i used matt without knowing it) and then airbrushed 2-3 coats of Testors dark gull grey (matt). The challenge with this kit was the vast surfaces to paint and have it not look monotone. I used some drops of black or white to vary the shape when spraying individual panels and the effect somewhat works.

I used black pigment powder to detail the turboprop and turbofan exhaust weathering. For the panel lines I mixed black and brown testors paint with testors thinners (about 1:5) and "painted" in the panels, while wiping off the excess. in truth if the solution is thin enough, simple capillary action will draw the paint down the lines easily.

The decals were fairly thin and ok to use, but come off the paper in seconds so be quick! I used microset and microsol on all decals but clean forgot to gloss coat the model with future or testors satin spray. Luckily there are relatively few decals to add and the large ones have a relatively thin border to deal with. Finally I sprayed the entire model with testors matt dulle coat only to find that it bubbled slightly instead of creating a smooth coat. After a few coats that all ended the same way I left to dry and then lightly sanded all the surfaces with an 800 grit paper which removed most of the imperfections.

Build Material Notes:

Kit: Zvezda 7016 1/144 A-90 Orlyonok bought on EBay ($24.99) 

Paints - Testors Dark Gull Grey

Putty: Tamiya

Antennae: Stretched sprue

Decals: Kit supplied with Microset/sol to settle

Matt varnish: Testors All-Purpose DullCote

Weathering: Vallejo Black pigment powder