Obviously, model aeroplanes teach you stuff about aviation history – they tend to be models of old aeroplanes, after all. From its original 1958 release to the final 2008 incarnation, one option was to finish your Airfix MiG-15 in Polish markings. Presumably the model was supposed to look something like a real life aeroplane, but which one? Not a real issue for my original 2/- Airfix MiG-15, but over time I got curious (or so people told me).
What started as a 2 minute search on Google developed into yet another rabbit hole…
Slupsk to Bornholm – one way
In the 1950s, air travel options from Poland to Denmark were very limited. The rules about check-in were even more restrictive than Ryanair, unbelievable as it may seem. Even today there are no direct routes from Slupsk to Bornholm. So on 5th March 1953, Polish air force pilot Franciszek Jarecki created his own route – one way by MiG-15. Coincidentally, this was the day Josef Stalin died.
Franciszek Jarecki’s MiG-15bis looks like a plausible inspiration for the kit markings. The identifying number on the nose is 346 and this incident had a fair amount of media coverage back then. There’s a very comprehensive account of his flight and subsequent events in Danish aviation blog flyvertosset. (In English rather than Danish, fortunately for some of us).
Airfix decals
Presumably team Airfix only had b/w photos to go on, but the numbers do look grey rather than black… What was that famous Colemanballs about snooker? So the original aircraft would almost certainly have been Red 346, as in these nice decals from Sagittarius3D. The colour wouldn’t be a question of printing limitations – fewer colours to save cost. So presumably Black 346 was an educated guess.
National insignia are in the right format, red outline squares so the metal shows through, rather than red & white squares.
The Lim-2 was a Polish licence-built version of the the MiG-15bis. However it wasn’t even in production in 1953. The first Polish Air Force MiG-15bis aircraft came direct from factories in the USSR. So if the kit markings actually represent Jarecki’s aircraft, Airfix got slightly ahead of themselves. Or lost track of some information in the intervening 20 years.
These markings also appear on a static display aircraft in the Cold War Museum in Langelandsfort, Denmark. (The actual display aircraft is a replica – not the original from 1953, which went back to Poland in boxes).
So a small sheet of decals turned into an interesting history lesson about the Cold War. (Well I thought it was interesting, anyway.) Possibly a lesson about conclusions based on limited information. And a reminder that it’s very easy to get distracted by stuff on the internet.