Intech 1/72
Yak-6

Background

The Yak-6 was a Soviet light transport and night bomber. The prototype Yak-6 was built by Aleksander Yakovlev’s design bureau in 1942. The type entered service in 1943. It was a low-wing cantilever monoplane, largely of wooden construction. Power was provided by two 140 hp M-11E five-cylinder radial engines driving two-blade propellers.
The engines were either uncowled or, on a number of aircraft, enclosed in “helmet” cowlings (provided in this kit). It appears that the majority of the aircraft produced (believed to be several hundreds) had fixed undercarriages, although late-production machines were reported to have main wheels retracting into the engine nacelles. There was always a fixed tail wheel.

The Yak-6 was utilized for a great variety of roles. It was employed as an air-liaison machine, single aircraft being attached to operational VVS regiments in the final years of WWII; as a transport for six soldiers; as an ambulance; training aircraft; light night bomber, in the PO-2 tradition. It carried a useful 500 kg (1102 lb) of bombs on five external racks. The crew was normally two, but a third crew member was carried as a gunner if a flexible 7.62 mm (0.30 in.) ShKas machine-gun (in a dorsal open position just behind the pilot) was installed (provided in this kit).

Unconfirmed reports indicated that Yak-6’s were flung into the Battle of Berlin in 1945 as assault aircraft equipped with underwing rockets. Postwar reports indicated that some of the type were still in service, at it accordingly received the reported code-name “Crib”.

The two-spar wing was built in three sections with dihedral on the outer panels. The tailplane was strut-braced. Later on, the Yak-8, followed the Yak-6 and it was larger and had smoother contours. It appeared in prototype form in 1944. It had two 150 hp M-11F engines and retractable undercarriage. Besides a crew of two, it carried 8 passengers or 600 kg (1323 lb.) of freight. It proved underpowered for postwar use and only a very small series of machines was ever completed.

Tech Data:

• Span:              14 m (45 ft. 11 in.)
• Length:           10.35 m (33 ft. 11 in.)
• Gross weight:  2350 kg (5181 lb.)
• Max speed:     180 km/h (112 mph) at sea level

The Kit

This kit is out of Russia by Master Craft Hobby. My kit has a sticker on the lid that says it was distributed by Intech Ltd. of Krakow, Poland years ago. Intech is a model company with it's own kits.  It also was later sold by Zvezda as kit no. ZVE7220. Both releases are available at Greatmodels. However, the Master Craft Hobby kit there shows a different box art than my kit…in very dark green with wheeled gear.

The kit comes in a very flimsy, blousy box, made from poor quality cardboard. Open opening the box you notice it is too deep and too wide, with a letter “L” void around the parts. The box art consists of a photo of the aircraft made up. It is painted overall winter white camouflage with the usual Soviet red stars on the fuselage sides and tail and (although not shown) the stars normally went underneath both wings, but not on top also.
The fuselage number “36” is black is shown (this number is not provided on the decals).
The prop blades are black and there is a wing walkway also painted black. The landing gear legs are black with the main skis in dark green. This is the ONLY painting and marking guide provided by the kit. The box art photo shows that the dorsal machine gun has a nice ring and crosshair sight on it. This is not provided in the kit and looks like it might be an after-market PE item.

The kit has one cello bag inside, holding all the contents. The bag is taped shut.

Inside the bag is 2 trees of white parts, a tree of clear parts, the decal sheet and the instructions.

The instructions consist of a single sheet that is stationary size; 8 ½” by 11” and printed only on one side. The paper is poor quality, kind of like newsprint paper.

It begins with a short paragraph about the Yak-6 in Russian and English. At the bottom of the page is 3 exploded drawings used for major assemblies and 3 small drawings that show assembly of just the tail wheel, underwing bombs and the main ski halves.
None of these parts in these drawings is numbered, nor are the parts on the sprues. You will have to try and identify them by their shape on the exploded drawings. Detail on the parts is of the raised variety. I liked the fact that the wing flaps, horizontal tail flaps and the rudder piece are all separate parts. That means that you can pose them. However, there are no pins and cups on parts for locating them into each other…so everything is butt-jointed together and some holes will also have to be drilled.

The largest tree in the kit holds: the fuselage halves, props, upper and lower wing halves, wing flaps, engines and their cowlings, 2 clunky looking pilots, 2 pilot seats, dorsal roof hatch, landing gear legs and wheels, DF loop, pitot tube, rudder, horizontal tail pieces, wind driven generator parts etc.(31 parts)

A second tree holds: the main ski parts, the tail ski and underwing bombs. (8 parts)

The small clear parts tree holds the cockpit window and 2 fuselage windows (3 parts)

The decal sheet has the soviet red stars on it, a red “46” fuselage number and white “35”,”44” and “53” fuselage numbers. There are 2 Order of the Red Banner emblems too.
Oddly, the black “36” fuselage number, shown on the box art photo is not supplied on the decal sheet. We are not told what squadrons these aircraft were from either. The box art photo is the only painting and marking help offered. The decal sheet is all carrier film, so markings will have to be closely trimmed.

The interior detail for this kit is almost non existent. Only two seats and inhuman looking pilot figures. There is no cockpit floor, no control yokes, no dashboard or wall behind the pilots. This area will be a scratchbuilder’s delight.

Conclusions

I got several of this kit from a pen pal in Krakow, years ago. All of them arrived here with the boxes in very crushed conditions, due to the light flimsy cardboard used to manufacture them. Part of this was also due to the void inside the box. Thankfully, nothing inside suffered.

I recommend this kit to those modelers interested in lesser known Soviet aircraft and modelers that don’t mind doing a little extra work to bring a kit up from just the ordinary.