Special Hobby has recently released two boxings of the Yakovlev Yak-23 "Flora" in 1/72. one boxing covers Soviet subjects plus a USAF evaluation aircraft, the other box covers Warsaw Pact users.
The kit contains a single sprue of grey styrene which is nicely molded and has decent details for a subject of this smaller size in this scale. The engraved panel detail also looks good:
Beyond the styrene, the kit contains a small photoetch fret which contains details mostly for the cockpit. There are also some resin bits to represent the main landing gear well, engine face, exhaust duct and some bits and bobs in the cockpit. A small clear sprue with a one piece canopy and a couple of other bits is nicely clear with the canopy framing well defined.
The decals cover three or four Soviet machines, all in aluminum finish, plus the USAF evaluation example. The sheet is rounded out by enough stencils for a subject of this size:
A look through the 10 step instructions shows a fairly involved process for constructing the cockpit, it's a true multimedia affair that will certainly take time to get together, but enough should be seen through the canopy to make the work worthwhile. A lot of the PE in the kit is directly related to the seat.
The nose landing gear construction seems to have been engineered for the bay to be built at the same time as the intake splitter body and the nose gear leg to be integral to that assembly step. As such, it would appear that they would have you build the kit with the nose gear leg in place and possibly risk breaking it off. Perhaps ,in assembly, a way to leave the gear leg off until the end will reveal itself.
The Soviet decals have been approached in an interesting way. The decal placement notes indicate that there is some discrepancies about the actual colours of the bort numbers on a couple of the decal options, no surprise given that they had only black and white pictures to work with, and they have offered bort numbers in two different but likely colours for the modeler to choose from. A thoughtful touch to be sure.
From an outline accuracy standpoint, it looks right and it agrees with the size and shapes of the old KP kit which is regarded as an accurate representation of the aircraft in those regards, so I have no misgivings about the kit that way.
It looks like a very good representation of the type for those who have a thing for early jets and looks like it will be a pretty straightforward build outside of the cockpit and nose landing gear.
