Anigrand Craftswork 1/144 Myasishchev M-50 Bounder Kit First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Anigrand Craftswork has been at it again. Small box outside, holy cow inside. I was surprised just how much they crammed into their first 1/144 release, Daimler Benz Project B (look here), but here is their second release, the M-50 Bounder. Yeah, right.

There is in fact a Myasishchev M-50 (ASCC codename Bounder) in this kit. You can see in the first two photos in the lower right column the M-50 in its packaging and laid out. Rather than repeat the background of this particular aircraft, I will direct you to Fotios Rouch's recent review of Amodel's 1/72 release of the same aircraft (look here).

If this release was just the M-50, this would be one very nice release, but there are in fact FOUR aircraft in this release. These are:

1. Myasishchev M-50 Bounder
2. Mikoyan Ye-152A Flipper
3. Sukhoi Su-15 Flagon
4. Lavochkin La-250A 'Anaconda'

Interesting that of these four aircraft, only one went operational - the Su-15. It was a later variant of this aircraft that knocked down KAL Flight 007, the 747 passenger flight that PVO insisted was the dreaded USAF RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft. But I digress...

The second aircraft in the line-up is the MiG OKB's Ye-152A, ASCC codenamed 'Flipper' (these guys had too much free time on their hands), this aircraft was a twin-engined parallel development of the single-engine Ye-152. These aircraft were concept aircraft to compete for the heavy interceptor requirement. While externally similar to the MiG-21, the airframe was significantly larger. The two missiles carried by the aircraft were the MiG-designed K-9s.

You can see Anigrand's nice rendition of the Ye-152A in the second pair of photos. The K-9 missiles are premolded with fins and loaded on pylons. If you take a closer look at that long resin fuselage, you can see the MiG-21 in the first half of the airframe, but definitely MiG-19 in the rear.

The third kit in this line-up is Sukhoi's Su-15. Developed as a longer range and all-weather interceptor, it still shows its roots in this first production variant. The first Sukhoi interceptors were the Su-9 and Su-11 (both ASCC codenamed Fishpot) which were essentially an Su-7 Fitter with delta wings. The Su-15 moved the intakes to the sides of the fuselage to make room for an advanced radar and replacing the AL-7F engine (which also powered the Fitter) with a pair of R-11F engines, the same engine powering the early MiG-21s.

You can see in the third pair of images that Anigrand has captured the lines of this aircraft very nicely and as I said above, is the only one of these four aircraft subjects to enter production and Soviet service.

The final kit is Lavochkin's entry into the heavy interceptor competition. This is the La-250A (Russian nick-named 'Anaconda'). This is actually the later variant as the earlier La-250 featured swept wings instead of the La-250A's delta wings. Like many of the other large airframes of the day, this aircraft was powered by a pair of AL-7F engines.

In the final pair of parts images, the banana-nosed La-250A is laid out very similarly to the three previous kits and also offers a pair of prototype missiles that were one of several systems that were plagued with problems and doomed the Lavochkin design.

Overall, all of these kits are designed with the same pin and hole locator system to mount wings and tail surfaces to the fuselage. The only real concern I have with all four of these models is that the landing gear on each one is molded in scale. Translate that to mean FRAGILE! If I were you, I'd build these gear up and mount them on a brass rod to a base so you can display these beauties in flight and not on your shelf with collapsed landing gear.

The kit provides two sets of decals to provide sufficient national markings and bort numbers for all four aircraft.

I am still in awe over the quality of the resin work that Anigrand Craftswork puts into these models. If you are a Soviet Air Force fan, these four are definite must-haves for your collection. The nice part about 1/144 scale is that it will take up a fraction of the shelf space as Fotios' 1/72 Amonster M-50 (which is also a beauty).

My sincere thanks to the US importer, Nostalgic Plastic for this review sample!