Neomega 1/48
An-2 Colt

Background

The An-2 was the first aircraft design that came out of the Antonov bureau in 1947. The An-2 is a light transport aircraft with great STOL capabilities build tough and suited for hard work. The Colt was in production for 45 years with the Soviets making about 5000 and the Polish making about 13000. The Chinese also make the An-2 under license and they call it the Y-5.

The Kit

While Italeri/Bilek and Trumpeter sell the An-2 in injected 72nd scale plastic, Neomega is the first company to release this wonderful machine in 48th scale.

The kit is all resin with vacuform clear parts for the canopy.

The model comes in a relatively small box and at a hefty price. Combine the two and you can understand how fast I opened the box to see what I paid $200 for! The quality of the master is evident as you can see from the pictures. The quality of the resin reproduction is not bad but I have seen better works from Neomega.

The fuselage comes in two main parts that stop short of the tail. The empennage comes in the fuselage end plug, the tail and the rudder and the tail wing in one piece with separate elevators. The cowling is separate from the fuselage and is full of surface detail. A great looking 9 cylinder engine (Wright R-1820 is its heritage) comes with separate cylinders and crankcase. The prop blades and hub are very well molded but will require careful removal of the prop blades from their pouring stubs.

The cockpit is absolutely full of detail and reminds me of all the other great Neomega cockpits I have in my collection.

The wings are beautifully detailed and come in top and bottom parts creating a semi hollow structure that will help with reducing the total weight of the structure.

There is a myriad of little flying surface actuators and hinges that will need to be carefully cut out and placed on the wings but I am sure that the end result will be worth it.

Some likes and dislikes now. The surface detail is spectacular and only resin kits can show and reproduce this type of detail. On the down side, my example shows a lot of scratches and dings on the surface that I will have to carefully repair them and try not to damage the delicate resin surfaces. Although a very nice cockpit is provided, there is no detail present at all inside the passenger compartment. Additionally, the windows are blanked out and it is up to the modeler to drill them out and figure out a way to create window representations. The decals provide for three versions but the carrier film appears to be a bit yellow.

Conclusion

All in all this is a great looking resin kit of a magnificent workhorse of a plane. The way the dollar is going I am not sure how many people will be willing to pay the price for owning one. Rumor has it that an injected kit might be coming our way too.

The kit is highly recommended to the An-2 lovers and resin kit collectors.

I purchased my example from http://www.neomega-resin.com/colt.htm