Noble Air200 Part Two : Russia
We continue to examine the sculpts and miniatures offered from Noble miniatures Air200 line. Noble, (located in Madison, Wisconsin, USA) has a lot to offer the
miniature-airplane gamer. They have a large line of World War 1 and 2 aircraft of varying scales. Their online store is a phone-order system, but hopefully they
will get that moved into the 20th centurey sometime soon. The figs we are going to look at this month, and continue next month are from their 1:200 scale
world war 2 line. These figs are also available at the online store over at Warbirdsinminiature.com.
You will notice that I have included an aircraft of another nationality in this list (the P-39). The reason for this is that a large amount of Russian
aircraft were lend-lease warbirds, particularly the P-39. I simply had to include it here.
LAVOCHKIN LA-5 (A2-SV103) : $6.99
The LA-5 while not the most attractive piece of metal on your gaming table, is a solid sculpt. I have always felt that the LA-5 was a little 'nosey',
and the sculptor of this aircraft captured it as well as one can. The detail is nice, especially around th ecockpit area. This is a great rendition of the
historical aircraft. The price listed is for a pair of aircraft.
The flash removal and cleaning of the fig was relatively quick (most all of the Noble Air200 figs are very clean castings), and once it was painted, it
looked very good on the table. Set screw installation went very easily. One thing I did notice is that the figure is very well balanced, and despite its 'nosey'
appearance, did not adversely affect the use of AireStands. As a matter of fact, they worked rather nicely.
If you are going to run a later war Eastern Front air campaign, you will want to get a handfull of this airplane miniature in your collection. They are nicely sculpted and
are a good addition to the game table.
A very solid 4 rating.
STURMOVIK ILUSHIN IL-2 (A2-SV201) : $5.99
No collection of Russian World War 2 aircraft would be complete without the tank-killing IL-2 Sturmovik. The very first kill that
Erich Hartmann racked up on the Eastern front was an IL-2 (that was on 11 May 1942). The fig is quite a chunk of metal, and depicts the aircraft nicely.
The price I have listed is for one aircraft.
This fig, like most of the Air200 line was easy to clean, well detailed, and easy to paint. I did not have any trouble mounting them for use on AireStands,
nor did they require any great amount of cleanup. Once the paint was on, they looked great.
Again, if you are planning on doing anything on the Eastern Front, you will need at least a handfull of these nicely done figures. If you want to have a load of fun, research and run a campaign of JG 54 on the Eastern Front and you will find that Otto Kittel shot down 94 (!!!) of these big boys.
Good plane, a well deserved 4.5 rating.
MIG-3 (A2-SV101) : $6.99
This sculpt of the MIG-3 is pretty good. Good detail, easily cleaned up and it lookes great painted. The really nice thing about this model
is that you can also use it to represent the MIG-1 as well.
There is good detail, especially around the engine, and the aircraft has the look and feel of its historical counterpart. The cockpit
is positioned towards the rear, as it was historically. As mentioned, the fig was nicely molded, very little flashing to trim, and the AireStand set screw mounting procedure went very smoothly.
On the Eastern Front Major Walter Nowotny (JG 54) shot down 24 of these aircraft and Colonel (Oberst) Hermann Graf (JG 52) shot down 20, so there is some good
potential for campaign usage with this miniature as well as the others listed herein.
A 4 rating for this nicely sculpted miniature.
YAK-9D (A2-SV102) : $6.99
I love the sculpt that Noble Air has made of the YAK-9. Very true to form, almost identical to its historical counterpart.
There is good detail, especially around the engine, and the aircraft has the look and feel of its historical counterpart. The cockpit
is positioned towards the rear, as it was historically (like the MIG-3). Very little cleanup or flashing to trim, and the AireStand mounting procedure went okay.
A 4.5 rating for this nicely sculpted miniature.
P-39Q (A2-US102) : $6.99
First off: I know this is not a Russian manufactured aircraft. The reason it is included here is that the P-39 was used extensively
by the Russians during world war 2. Erich Hartmann alone shot down 81 of these aircraft on the Eastern Front. Any serious gamer
will need to include the P-39 in their pool of Russian aircraft if they hope to portray the Eastern Front airwar.
I absolutely love the detail captured in this sculpt. It has a great cockpit area, is about as historically acurate as you could
ask for in a miniature AND was a lot of fun to paint. Of course going for the Olive Drab look sped up the painting process, it was still
quite a joy to put this model together.
The sculpt was clean, and there were hadly and mold lines to be trimmed up. There is enough weight to mount the AirStand set screws without
any difficulty, and the figure (despite hacing a slightly rounded bottom) performs very well on the gaming table. I was a little worried that
the rounded bottm might make it difficult to mount the set screw, but there was no problems once I got it going.
I sat and thought about the rating for this aircraft sculpt, and I have to give it a 5. Great detail, historically accurate, and a joy to paint.
Noble Air200 Overall Rating
Overall the German aircraft put out by Noble are good, solid sculpts! Not a whole lot of flashing to trim, and all were very grit-free and clean. I would say they are pretty close to the best 1:200 scale aircraft I
have painted and played with so far. I would absolutely love to see them expand their line and get my hands on some more. A VERY solid 4. The price is just about right, and the figs
were easy to modify to put on the AireStands (my choice for air stands) from Aerie Miniatures (see our Warbirds in Miniature review).
Johann