F-86 Sabre vs MiG-15
MiG Alley, Korea, Circa 1952
Airfix (A03082 + A02037)
1:72

Late in 2012 my local IPMS club put together an out-of-the-box group build based on the Airfix 1/72 F-86 kit. Modellers were allowed to use alternate decals but everything else must be only from the box.

I selected the Korean war Sabre boxing and as I sat pondering my build I looked hard at the actual box art and an idea began to form in my mind. The next day I tracked down and purchased the Airfix 1/72 MiG-15 kit and set about building them together with the idea of depicting the dramatic scene being played out on the Airfix boxart. This meant the models would be on stands and displayed in aggressively manoeuvring attitudes.

Anyway, cut a long story short, I built these two kits 100% out of the box (including kit decals) and despite some basic fit challenges I was impressed with how far Airfix has come since I was a youngster when Airfix 1/72 was all I could buy from the corner shop (I guess to be fair my modelling skills have come along as well). Once I had the models built I used the actual box top from the Sabre kit for my base and that was that.

The group build was very successful with 15 of the 20 models we started with being on display at the June 2013 meeting. This is the first time I have participated in a group build and given how much I enjoyed it won't be the last time.