Anybody know their way around a MIG29?

[sturmbird]

Second inquiry of the week!
I've got this Trumpeter Mig29m in 1/32 scale. Have little interest in the kit, but! I came into a book about an air wing that uses nothing but foreign aircraft. They seem to have a lot of Russian equipment, and cover everything from a Mig15 thru the SU27. They even have a couple F117's.
They get there hands on a couple ex-Moldavian Mig29's. My data calls them out as the Mig29smt. Is that an M variant? If so, I'm building one.
Gary

[Tobi]

Gary, as far as I understand SMT is an upgrade program for MIG29 A's to bring them to an improved "M" standard.

Though I don't know if this includes the fly-by-wire system and the imperial scales instead of metric ones.

I think it's more about the weapon options and targeting systems, but I'm no expert on airframes.

[sturmbird]

I'm thinking about doing the Mig in some kind of aggressor form. By the way, them Mig in 1/32 scale is huge!
Gary

[Tobi]

Many years ago I had the Revell kit in 1/32 and it went together nicely. The only issue I remember was the intakes, so I built it with FOD covers.

[sturmbird]

Nov 19, 2019 2:14:16 GMT -5 Tobi said:

Many years ago I had the Revell kit in 1/32 and it went together nicely. The only issue I remember was the intakes, so I built it with FOD covers.

I read a couple chapters in that book. Didn't say a lot about the MIG29, but called it out as a Mig29c while other parts state Mig29smt. Kinda odd, and the photos make it look very early without the inferred device on the nose. Maybe the export models didn't have that?
Reading the book I learned that virtually every kit built from the Mig21 and earlier has the seat setup wrong! The ejection seat highth was not adjustable, and the seat highth was made up with external cushions! Another issue with the pilot was that there wasn't much clearencebetween his head and the canopy.
Gary

[sturmbird]

I found Yefim Gordon's book on the MIG29 in a black Friday sale! Twenty four dollars brings the whole MIG29 series to light. Moldavian Migs were 9.12 and 9.13 models. The Mig29c was an error.
Also learned to forget about 70% you read. Time to rethink everything!
Gary

[dupes]

In answer to your original question - the SMT is not an M. It's an upgrade to the original MiG-29A with an enlarged center-spine fuel tank. The M has it's own fuselage upgrades which make it different...but don't have that tank.

Lots of good reading here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan_MiG-29

If you check out the Trumpeter catalog, you'll see that they now make an A, C, UB, SMT, K, and M all in 1/32 scale. The K and M kits are quite a bit older, but still pretty excellent, while the other four are newer releases and are pretty stellar.