Part S72-043 and S72-044
1/72 TS-11 Iskra Detail Sets
For Modelcraft kits

The Iskra is a Polish-made trainer/light attack aircraft in the mold of the A/T-37 Dragonfly, except with tandem instead of side-by-side seating. The plane has been in production off and on from 1960 until 1990 in training, reconnaissance and single-seat dedicated attack configurations.

Years ago, my pen friend Jan Adamek sent me a copy of the Modelcraft kit, which was new at the time. The kit was no great shakes—pebbly surface texture, thermal deformities in the one-piece wings, and a generally crude feel. I gave that kit away, but since then the Modelcraft kit has been spruced up quite a bit so that it’s injection-molded parts are on par with MPM’s moldings. The interior, however, was still rather spartan.

Part’s sets changes that. Set S72-043 has 53 brass parts and corresponding photonegative instrument faces, all etched beautifully on a two-inch square sheet. A new cockpit floor section and rear bulkhead, each detailed appropriately, provide a foundation for the rest of the cockpit. Two lovely instrument panels grace the front of each cockpit, and equally well-rendered side panels and stringer detail for the sidewalls dress up these areas. Assembling the sidewalls may be slightly tricky, as they join to the folded sides on the floor section at a right angle. A bit of styrene strip for support could provide greater surface area for gluing. The set also includes numerous levers, pull handles and even a pair of canopy rails, which will prove helpful once the canopy is posed open to show off this detail.

Set S72-044 is for the outside of the Iskra, and includes among the more than 120 several parts that will help improve the kit’s somewhat crude landing gear. The wheels each get six pieces which make up the brake assembly; new anti-torque scissors, airbrakes, nose antenna, gear doors and no fewer than 20 aileron control horns add to the business of the plane’s exterior. The inclusion of these many parts may make your model more difficult to handle but much more interesting to look at.

Some may say these two sets are attempts to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but modern, fully-detailed kits don’t need the kind of extensive detail that Part specializes in. In both cases, the instructions are vague in spots, but any modeler courageous enough to take on the Modelcraft Iskra will probably have sufficient experience to negotiate the instructions successfully.