1:32 IL-2M3

A late attack aircraft with a swept wing

The designation M3 belongs to the production state in which the Il-2 reached the peak of its possibilities: a second crew member with a flexible machine gun, a strengthened fuselage and above all the outer parts of the wing drawn back to even out the center of gravity upset by the weight of the gunner. The Mikulin AM-38F engine pulled through an armored tub whose walls were not added from outside but formed the load-bearing structure of the forward part of the aircraft itself. From 1943 to the end of the war it was the backbone type of the Soviet ground-attack arm.

One insignia mask and why it is enough

This set holds a single mask for the national insignia and decals with it. That is not an omission. Masking film can be used a second and a third time after careful lifting, provided paint has not built up on it, so one shape of star covers all the positions on the fuselage and the wing one after another. The difference against a decal is that a decal is used up at once and in a fixed number of pieces, whereas a mask is a tool the builder puts away.

• two cuts for the glazing, outer and inner
• a single national insignia stencil
• a sheet of decals in the package

The condition for repeated use

The film has to be lifted while the paint is tacky and laid aside sticky side down on a smooth base, for example on the glossy film from the packaging. Once the edge ripples, the accuracy is gone. The second condition is patience: every further position means waiting for the previous coat to become tacky, so the stars on the fuselage and on the wing come about one at a time, not in the course of one afternoon. The kit is not in the package.