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| Special Hobby 1/72 Yak-17 | Quick Review |
| The Yak-17 was an early jet development of the Soviet Union, and was based off of the earlier Yak-15 jet, which in turn was based off of the Yak-3U. The Yak-17 has a distinctive profile reflective of many of the early Russian designs, wtih the engine occupying the forward half of the fuselage, and the exhaust coming from underneath the tail boom. The nose wheel looks like an afterthought, with it being partially exposed when retracted. Both Poland and Czechoslovakia received one for possible license production. The kit is molded in light gray, and has a very well detailed resin cockpit and a crisp vacuformed canopy. Everything was nicely packaged, with the resin parts separate from the plastic ones, protecting them from damage. Upon removing the plastic parts from the bag, the first thing I noticed was a rough, pebbly feel to the plastic. It looked shiny, but in running my fingers over it I could feel the texture. I don't know if this was just a problem with this one shot or a characteristic of the plastic in general. Some light sanding will take care of it, and the lack of panel lines on the real plane makes that easy.
The construction of the kit itself is very simple and straightforward, much like the real plane. The wings are solid, and have fine wheel well detail. There is some flash around some of the parts, and this seems to be typical for many of the Eastern European kits, but the actual surface detail is very fine and quite on par with that of Hasegawa and Tamiya. There are no locating pegs for the fuselage halfs nor any tabs for the wings and tailplanes, which makes alignment somewhat tricky, but with some time and care, a perfect seam should be easy to get. The engine is depicted with both a front plate and a rear plate, blanking off the fuselage nicely. It also creates a nice pocket for that nose weight that is going to be essential if you want this one sitting on all three wheels. The landing gear looks frail, which is probably correct for this plane, but it presents some possibilities for problems. It is one area to be careful when building the kit, that's for sure. The nose strut and wheel arrangement is particularly weak-looking. Markings are provided for one Soviet Yak-17 and one Czechoslovakian one. The decals are printed by Propagteam and are very well done, both thin and in register. The colors of the Yak-17 are pretty basic, being green on top and blue-gray on bottom. Both Humbrol and Aeromaster colors are given in the instructions, a very nice touch. While there will be some difficulties in building this kit, it looks to be a fairly quick build, and will add a lot of variety to your shelves. Chris Banyai-Riepl |  Decal Sheet
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