AK Interactive Soviet Aircraft Colors 1950-1970 Paint Review

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

AK Interactive has just the latest release paint set targeted to the aircraft modeler - Soviet Aircraft Colors between 1950 and 1970. Technically they refer to fighter colors during this era and as you know, virtually all fighters in Frontal Aviation and well as Air Defense (PVO) were bare metal. This set tackles that aspect head-on.

This set contains four 17ml bottles of acrylics and two 30ml bottles of enamel-based metalizers. The colors in this set include:

• AK479 Aluminum
• AK480 Dark Aluminum
• AK2301 Cockpit Turquoise
• AK2302 Radome Green
• AK2303 Interior Green
• AK2304 Cockpit Gray

The metalizers apply as nicely as anything I've used, you can see an example of these at work here. The acrylics are also robust and apply like Vallejo and we've tested these previously. While the presence of the metalizers are obvious with Soviet fighters of this era, the acrylics provide you with some flexibility without having to hunt for missing colors. The Radome Green for example is the same color used on the dielectric panels as well as the wheel hubs on MiG, Sukhoi, and Tupolev fighters. The Interior Green is useful for some wheel wells and other nooks and cranies on the airframe. MiGs, Suhois, etc., of the 1950s and 1960s were either gray or a similar shade of silver, while aircraft produced in the 1970s started receiving the unique turquoise color in the cockpit. You'll even see the turquoise appear in the cockpits of older fighters after they've been through depot maintenance. For example, you'll see the MiG-21PF with the silver-gray cockpit in older photos, but you'll see the same aircraft with turquoise in the cockpit if it went through depot maintenance after the cockpit colors had transitioned to turquoise. Of course most Russian aircraft are receiving a blue-gray cockpit these days, but that is a different paint set.

My sincere thanks to AK Interactive for this review sample!