WAKU 1/72 Yak-11 By Christoph Riesen

I got this kit many many years ago, from someone in the former Eastern European Socialist countries with whom I was exchanging models.

The producer of the kit is WAKU, a Polish firm from which I have not heard again. I assume the kit was produced in the late '80s or early '90s.

The kit is basically one thin sheet of white, soft vacuformed plastic and a vacuformed canopy. There is no box, rudimentary assembly and painting instructions are printed on a sheet of cardboard, and decals for several versions are provided with the kit, Polish, Austrian and a civil Czech variants, see photos. A Soviet version unfortunately is missing.

Detailing of the main parts, fuselage and wings is quite nice, but some parts were unusable like the landing gear, most of the cockpit interior, antennas, pitot tube etc.

Sanding off all usable parts was not too big a job, the plastic is quite soft and thin. The fit of most parts is astonishingly good; I needed some putty only for the fuselage-wing joints.

The cockpit interior was mainly built from scratch but using the original instrument panels although these needed some work. A great help for the interior were the numerous photos floating around in the internet and in literature. My particular credit goes to "Krylia Rodinyi 9/98" with accurate 3-side view drawings of several Yak-11 variants.

Working on the canopy was a bit challenging, the clear part is very delicate and no spare is provided in the kit. Biggest risk was drilling the hole for the antenna in the aft canopy without ruining the clear part. And mounting the antenna firmly without staining the canopy with glue was very tricky indeed.

For wheels and landing gear I sacrificed an Emhar Yak-3 (in fact I had to sacrifice two, because one landing gear just rocketed away during assembly and I never found it again…).

The original propeller and cowling found their way onto the model. Minor details like antennas, landing light etc. had to be made from scratch as these parts are either not provided in the kit or are unusable, but this no major challenge using sprue or polyethylene rods.

Assembling the kit would not have taken too long, but I had to put it away for some time because my job took me abroad for a longer period. On the other hand I was lucky to have he chance to visit the China Airforce Museum in Beijing, with several original Yak-11 on display. This visit gave me another boost for finally completing the Yak-11 model.

Wheel well covers are from the original kit, they fit well and the plastic sheet is thin enough to make it look quite realistic.

The Red Stars decals came from the left-over-box and also from the sacrificed Emhar kit.

The finished model looks smashing! It as is real small jewel.

All in all, although it requires some skills and above all patience, and some parts have to be replaced, the WAKU Yak-11 is an uncomplicated kit to build. The model is a nice new item for any collection of Soviet aircraft. I can highly recommend it for those who have the chance to find one of these kits, which maybe are very rare today. I still have one on stock.