The Rata Pack, build complete and ready for paint

 

the factory floor gets messy at times

       Having painted some minis I gave myself permission to go back to building airplanes for the Labor Day holiday weekend. Tired of the serial builds; one of this, one of that I decided that I would build all of my remaining Polikarpov I-16 Ratas in one go. Three of the kits were the classic Revell kit and the last was an IMC kit that was much newer. I knocked together the Revell kits in about 90  minutes (having built several in the past year they were dead-easy) but the IMC kit suffered from a bizarre pattern of sectioning of the parts combined with tons of flash and more than normal parts warping. This one kit took longer that the others to build and required a fair amount of filler and sanding. Be that as it may, I plugged along and got them all assembled, filled and sanded (as well as adding a steel slug in the fuselage to allow for the use of magnetic stands)

 

a coat of primer and its off to the races for painting.

       Now I have to decide what colors I should give them. One will be in Nationalist Chinese, at least one more will bear the red star of the Soviet Union, and I am pretty sure that one will be set up for the Spanish Civil War. The fourth could go either Russian, or Spanish, or maybe even Finnish.....not sure, not sure.  As I wait for the paint to dry on these I will try to be working on the I-15 series; two I-15s, and one each of an I-152 and I-153. I have no idea what color these will carry.