Egyptian MiG-17 "Nile Valley Camouflage scheme" 1973/ Trumpeter 1/32 MiG-17



The MiG-17 equipped the Egyptian Air Force from the 1950s well into the 80s.  Hundreds of  "17s" were purchased from various sources including the Czechs and the Russians.  After the 1967 "Six Day war" the Egyptians camouflaged their aircraft with a variety of color schemes applied over their natural metal finishes.  One particular scheme was called the "Nile Valley" and was basically a three color scheme of  Green/ Sand/ and Black-Green on top and either sky blue or light grey on the underside.  The Egyptians used available paint from local sources, initially using automotive paint.  The "Nile Valley" scheme went through a few transitions of pattern with the first planes being covered in large patches as seen in the photos below. This particular plane was donated in the 1980s, by the Egyptian Air Force to the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio.  It was later refurbished and repainted in North Vietnamese camouflage for display. The in-flight photos were taken during the 1973 Yom Kippur war and show Egyptian jets attacking Israeli positions. The over-head, color in-flight shot was cropped from a formation flight photo taken during the 1983 US-Egypt "Bright Star", multi-national exercise The color profile was created by Mr. Tom Cooper of the ACIG.org website.

 

The final version of the Nile pattern and color scheme involved wavy bands of color rather than the earlier seen patches. The colors appear to have stayed the same being Light Olive/Sand/ and Black-Green. I created this artwork of the camo pattern for #2975 after looking at the available photos of this aircraft.  I think mine is more accurate than any other profile artwork of this plane I've seen included in kits or on the net (naturally..).

The enlargement below from the above photo shows that the Black aircraft number 2975 was outlined on one side in Red, (a little known fact), but useful to create an accurate scale model of this plane.

At this point the pattern of the camouflage ended and each MiG-17 aircraft painted in the Nile Valley scheme appeared different from the next.  It would seem that only a general application guideline was ordered. The final design of the wavy bands were left to the imagination of individual squadron painters as can be seen in the photos below.

The Egyptians engineered additional hard-points to carry bombs under the fuselage which were very type specific to their aircraft as seen in the photo below:

In addition wing-mounted rails equipped with unguided 76mm SAKR rockets were also an Egyptian indigenous design. These should appear on most Egyptian "17"s.

Next: The Model, Trumpeter Models 1/32nd scale MiG-17F

More to come.....This will be a progress report and update frequently.
Here is the link to Detail & Scale website which I used for reference:
http://www.detailandscale.com/mig-17_fresco_a_details.html
I wanted to show a partial build that I did for a diorama which appears on my blog couple of months ago. It is the tail section of a MiG-17 (same kit) and done in the "Nile Valley" scheme. I will do a full build-up and that will appear here, stage by stage.

Day 1of the build:  Out of the box, the fuselage sections were engineered into 4 parts. The 2 forward parts make up the forward fuselage, cockpit and nose section.  The 2 back sections include the vertical tail and fuselage forward to just past the trailing wing-root.  I decided from experience (having built one of these models already) to glue the forward and back halves together prior to final assembly.  Its actually more of a conventional build-up now, with a left and a right fuselage half, trapping everything between the two sides.

The reason I did it this way was to insure that the assembly of the vertical tail would be at dead zero to the centerline of the forward fuselage later on. This was the most logical way to go about it, considering that exposing the engine was not a feature I am incorporating into this build. So there you go.  Next, there is the pesky business of inaccurate panel lines here and there. One really blatant example is the one on the right side of the vertical tail. This one needs to be filled in and sanded over. It's not there on the actual plane.

This model when built is a "Tail-sitter". The tricycle type landing gear are well forward of the center of gravity so it will rock back onto the exhaust pipe unless a considerable amount of weight is added.  What the exact amount is, I can't say, If you think you have enough, put more (like explosives....).   I managed to squirrel two of the kit supplied counter-weights (I had an extra laying around) and some additional lead shot to compensate for this.  I located all this on the gun-tray panel under the cockpit. It's not visible and doesn't interfere in the later stages of this build. Next step will be the cockpit.

I used the "Cutting Edge" MiG-17 cockpit set and mixed it with the "Eduard" dashboard and cockpit upgrade set. This was done to expedite the build and also I tend to "cherry-pick" the best parts of aftermarket kits and use only what I like or need. Here is the cockpit in place before painting. The instrument panel is pre-painted.

I now move to the painting stage of the cockpit. Here is how it appears before I add the ejection seat and pilot.

Day 3 of build: Profimodeler MiG-17 photo-etched upgrade set applied to upper cockpit area. Test fit of my Frankenstein pilot made from various figure parts.

Day 4 of build ((I'm losing count so don't go by the number of days)


I finally had some time, after family and business of course to put some more work into this project. I decided that because of time constraints that I would short-cut some of the features that I had originally wanted to include. The air-brakes for instance, are now in the closed position. This model requires so much time to seal all the gaps that it took days of work to get it to this stage.

.It will be worth it though in the end. So here you can see that I added some photo-etch from "Eduard" to the exterior to dress it up.



The barrel of the 37mm cannon was drilled out and the side vents cut open. The other 23mm gun blisters were drilled out to accept brass tubing at a later stage.


I also decided to nix the pilot. The ejection seat and cockpit were really way too nice to hide them away under a pilot figure. Maybe next time.




Day ?  (I've lost count, not that it matters..)
Improving a model that has design flaws and detail omissions brings back the "glory" (or agony) days of modeling 1/32nd scale Revell kits in the 1970s.  These were basically accurate in outline but lacked details seen in modern kits.  They could however be transformed with time, ingenuity and patience into show pieces of a large scale collection.  The early Trumpeter kits of the MiG-15 & MiG-17 fall into this category.  So why bother?  Because, there are no other offerings of this aircraft in this scale.  Anyway, I have entered the swamp and the only way out is to keep going ahead...One of the glaring problems with this kit is the front windscreen which is totally inaccurate for the MiG-17C. It is more appropriate for the radar version, MiG-17PF.  Squadron produced a vacuform fix for the MiG-15 kit but it can be used with minor modification on the MiG-17.  Following are photos of my canopy fix.  I cut the center section from the kit windscreen including the framing to be glued into the interior of the vacuform piece to replicate the heavy framed bullet-proof glass.  The rear-view mirror was carved from a lump of left over resin sprue.

The next bit of scratch building was the fuselage pylons seen on all Egyptian MiG-17s.  I made these from a piece of Aluminum tubing flattened to the appropriate profile and dressed-up with bolt and lug details.

Micro-Brass tubing was inserted into the pre-drilled cannon fairings.  These came out very nice and sharpen up the detail appearance of the model.

 Some nice cast white-bronze landing gear from "G-factor" were added to replace the kit pieces.  These are very well detailed, super strong and fit into place perfectly.  A bonus are the molded-in hydraulic lines.  I drilled a small hole on top of both the wings in-line with the main gear struts and inserted a piece of brass wire to replicate the visual gear down indicators. These will be painted red later on.

Well, I had some time over the weekend and managed to fiddle with this model abit more.  The cockpit now has a joystick and the lower canopy frame is painted.  I touched up around the gun-sight and the ejection seat is finished.  I applied a coat of flat black overall to  check my seams and fix the ones that aren't good enough.  The afterburner petals are from the "Eduard" MiG-17 set which really accentuates the tail-end of the plane.  I also added the flare launcher to the vertical tail, scratched up from scrap.  I wish this little gem, a very signature feature of MiG-17F had been included in the Eduard set.  I also added a "Sirena-2" radar warning pod on the trailing edge of the vertical tail between the elevators of the horizontal stabilizers. So here are more photos showing where I am in the process.

So here I am, something like 2 months into this project and still fiddling around with the details.  Waiting now for a very cool main cannon fairing and pitot tube set in brass likely to turn up any day.  You can see here from the photos that I decided to get serious about the painting.  A few photos that I took last night.  You can see the brown pre-shade I used over the top of the black primer to lessen the stark effect of the black on the panel line.  I use brown to not overshade the panels that will be visible in the sand color of the camouflage pattern.  The cockpit canopies are finally done and waiting masking for paint.  More photos are this model moves along like a herd of turtles...

  Here is the first color of the scheme:  Testors enamel/ Modelmaster: Sand FS#33531

More to follow.....
First coat of the camouflage pattern:

I like to establish the general shapes first, I then spray broad areas filling the larger areas, then start to dial it in until I have the sharp outlines of the final scheme. The colors I'm using are from Testors Model-master Enamel paints. Sand and SAC bomber green. I will shade the green later with German "Grun". This color is a very close match to the green seen on this MiG-17.

Making good progress now and looking at my vast decal collection to find the correct markings for my MiG. Meanwhile I came across these little beauties to dress things up.

The detail on these minute parts is staggering.  I am amazed that it's possible to create such tiny masterpieces for the price.  I got these from "SprueBrothers".  Here are a few more photos of the progress so far..

Spent some time to gloss-coat the model in preparation for decals.  An extensive search in my decal collection turned up some useful decals.  The numbers were from a few different sources but I managed to piece the entire serial number for #2975 together.

  The armament for this airplane will be 8x76mm SAKR unguided rockets. The fuselage hardpoints will hold 2 x FAB-250 bombs.  I couldn't find these in 1/32nd scale, so instead I am using 1/48th scale FAB-500 bombs which appear to fit the profile and give the appearance that I wanted.  Here these are:

Next step will be to flat coat and then weather this bird.  So far, so good.

So at this point I'll call an end to this project.  Only the landing gear doors left to go on but for the most part done.  Time to move on to another subject....Nile Camo was cool and fun to apply.  There were a lot of variations but doing one particular bird was the challenge.

COMMISSIONS

Yes, I will build commissioned scale models for select clients.  I can be reached by email: seahors1@gate.net