Thanks for the positive comments - glad you liked the MiG.
John – it's good to see your profiles again. I'm tempted by the Finnish Tu-4 (but I'm still working on a Vietnamese Il-40 and a Pe-2 based on profiles that you did a couple of years ago - - -).
And, oddly enough, the Ash-82 Spitfire project is back on the agenda – I'm thinking of a re-engined PR XIX.
Next up (and the first model that I've finished since the Soviet pulse-jet Spitfire in September 2010!) is a Jumo powered version of the He-162, based on the Hobby Boss kit. This was started in October 2007 and went quite quickly until the decal stage, when everything ground to a halt for four years.
Although not a clone of the Dragon kit, the Hobby Boss kit is clearly heavily influenced by it. However, it has some problems of its own - the canopy frame line is in the wrong place, the fit of the parts is not that good, and, on my example, the rear fuselage had suffered shrinkage to produce a slight banana shape and an angled join with the front part. Also, while the main undercarriage legs are copied from the Dragon kit, the wheel bay is shallower, resulting in a very odd sit if you don't shorten the u/c legs. However, all these problems, including the canopy, were corrected with a little filling, sanding and polishing as necessary and I would probably much rather work with this than the Dragon kit.
I've gone the lazy way of representing the Jumo engine by simply using an engine nacelle from a Matchbox Me-262. Although I've seen the Jumo powered He-162 drawn this way elsewhere, I suspect that, in real life, the Jumo would have been enclosed in a nacelle designed specifically to fit on top of an He-162 and not under the wing of an Me-262. On the other hand, using the Me-262 parts is quicker and does make the He-162 look a bit different.
The colour scheme represents a machine tested post war by the USSR which, in the Real World, did test fly at least two standard He-162s painted in an overall grey scheme with full Soviet markings.
