VVA-14

Roland Sachsenhofer
First pictures of this interesting and without doubt extraordinary project - and no, it's not Han Solo's "Millenium Falcon"! 🙂
Mikro Mir puts some nice, but rather rudimentary details in the box. Surprisingly, each ejector seat was made from no less than 25 individual components. The accuracy of fit has turned out to be rather poor. The layout of the parts and their construction are as unusual as the plane itself.... well, entertainment seems assured in any case!

David Taylor
Very interesting machine,following.

Robert Podkoński
Oh yes! Watching with pleasure and utmost interest!

Marcel Klemmer
Then I'll sit down and see how you can overcome all the small and large difficulties…😉

Gordon Sørensen
Great looking interior, Roland. The fit of the main parts looks to be… 'challenging'. Looking forward to watching your progress.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you all for the interest and attention, it pleases me and is of course very welcome!
Lot after lot is now being filled and sanded - I'm already curious myself how the imposing shapes of the VVA-14 will build up!

Łukasz Gliński
Following whilst still fearing to start mine 😄

Ethan Flory
Will be watching, fascinated by this aircraft!

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you Łukasz and Ethan!
I don't know if the two new pictures will calm or fuel the fears, Łukasz 🙂
The fit of the front canopy glazing is really entirely in trouble. Here I had to cut and then carefully spackle the rough glue joint. Since the windows fit tightly from both sides, extra care has to be taken here: Here you can see the sanding area taped off from both sides in the middle of the work, the actual masking will be applied later.

Villiers de Vos
One of those fascinating subjects. I am booking my seat.

Łukasz Gliński
Hmm, that doesn't look grand I'm afraid. And I don't mean your efforts, to be clear 🤔

Thomas Espe
Ooooh, 👀

Ben M
👀

Carlo
Looking in..

Torsten
👀

Finn
Cool, will follow

bughunter
What an ugly beast! Yes I know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And your model will be nice at the end, I'm sure.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thanks mates for interest and encouragement! I will do my best to make the beast turn into a handsome prince by the end, well.... he'll have to stay a bit hunchbacked in the end. 🙂

Roland Sachsenhofer
I will work my way forward here piece by piece. The first part is the fuselage/cockpit section: Here you can see the two parts together, filled and sanded, Cyanoacrylate was the main filling material used. Next are the two mighty fuselage outriggers - but before that I have to replenish my sandpaper supplies. 🙂

Mirko Römer
Taking a seat. Nice progress so far, Roland!

Ben M
More sandpaper. Sign of a good build. I know it's a good one when I have to get another tube of putty.

Nathan Dempsey
Definitely an interesting subject Roland. Also I have a place in my heart for difficult kits. 🙂

Villiers de Vos
The wing joint came out good.

Roland Sachsenhofer
I appreciate your interest - thank you!
Sandpaper is filled up: the two outriggers with the floats are brought to the condition where they can be mounted to the hull. Thanks Villiers, in the meantime it is fun to get these merging shapes out.

Roland Sachsenhofer
The beast slowly gathers its parts together - and even gains a certain elegance in the process! The assembly of the individual components requires a great deal of fitting, grinding, filling and spackling - but nothing that goes beyond what is expected or even manageable. I am more and more taken with Mikro Mir's VVA-14. My only concern at the moment is how to attach the measuring probe to the outermost fuselage nose in a stable way. No provisions have been made for this and gluing it butt to butt doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

David Taylor
Love the shape of the beast.Possibilities of a lot of "what ifs".

Ben M
Can you pin it?

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you Dave, Ben! If there's no other way, I'll tack it on at the end of the build, exactly. I don't want to drill into the transparent part and I don't want to get inside the cabin with the drill if I can avoid it. I'm afraid the drilled material could become electrostatically attached to the windows from the inside.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Now here it is all put together and your delicate preshading applied, with the white I just airbrushed for the "Grunau Baby" I enhanced the effect with brightenings in appropriate places.

Roland Sachsenhofer
A few new pics- and that´s not the actual state of the VVA-14: the decals have already been applied by now.

Roland Sachsenhofer
Now it's done: a project that certainly had its challenges, but: Modelsvit has designed a very well thought-out and practicable parts structure for this complex aircraft. However, cleaning and preparing the parts takes a lot of time. Anyway, a real experience, I'm already looking forward to the next Modelsvit project (maybe I'll treat myself to a less elaborate Eduard kit or something similar 🙂
The base patched together yesterday should give a little background and atmosphere - and also allow a size comparison - the VVA-14 is a very massive part!
Thanks, mates, for your interest and your motivating comments!

Neuling
A weird aircraft. Thanks for building and showing! Your presentation makes it look like the real thing!

Łukasz Gliński
Brilliant, makes me wanna build mine even more 😄 What are is this hexagonal background you have used?

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank you very much for your words! I'm very pleased to hear this from you, mates. I put together the "concrete" background from "Uschi van der Rostens soviet airfield" sheet. It looks quite decent in real life and also makes a good impression in the photos.

Łukasz Gliński
It does look good indeed, what size is yours? 72nd or 48th?

Roland Sachsenhofer
Thank yo, it's in scale 1:72.
Do you know one in 1:48? Must be giantic!

Robert Podkoński
Awesome job. Congrats! (I am happy to have one in my stash... but now I am very reluctant to begin the work on it... ever... 😉 )

Villiers de Vos
Fantastic work.

Finn
Beautiful!

Bernd Grün
Beutiful build and paint job, Roland! 👌👌👌 Amazing!

Nathan Dempsey
I'm going to use a word for this build that should compliment this excellently odd subject: "Fantabulous" build Roland! Love it.

Oleg Smilyk
Excellent work with the difficult model of this unusual ekranoplan Roland! Unfortunately, I didn't find him in this form, but I was sitting in his cabin when he was lying in a landfill like scrap metal at a plant in Taganrog where he did his internship in 1985. Congratulations, it looks great!

David Taylor
Needs a couple of Pegasus engines in the sponsons and the job is done.

Ben M
😍😍😍

Roland Sachsenhofer
How happy and impressed I am by your comments! Thank you very much for your interest and your encouraging words - motivating me to bring another rare bird from Modelsvit/consorts to the workbench soon. The stories behind them are no less amazing than the appearance of these aeroplanes. Oleg, a particularly interesting comment!

bughunter
When I compare the first pictures with the final result, I am deeply impressed by your skills 👍 This is a ugly and beautiful beast at the same time!

Michael Kohl
Who on earth designs a plane like this? 😉
Interesting nevertheless and clean build.

Łukasz Gliński
Robert Ludvigovich Bartini 😄

Michael Kohl
🙂

Marius
Impressive model!

Roland Sachsenhofer
Wow, I really appreciate and feel happily motivated about your comments - thank you, mates!

Guy Rump
Impressive modelling as usual. 👍

Juergen Klinglhuber
This was under my radar, wow. Cool model - great build. As always!

Roland Sachsenhofer
Guy and Jürgen, thank you very much indeed!!