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Bartini’s space ship

Modelsvit 1/72^nd scale Bartini Beriev VVA-14 (BBA-14) built and painted by Everard Cunion in December 2021

This aircraft, which is sometimes categorized as a Caspian sea monster, is indeed a monster. The only larger models I own in 1/72^nd scale are an Avro Vulcan and a Lockheed AC-130. It depicts the VVA-14, which first flew in 1972, in its early incarnation before the fuselage was lengthened and another pair of engines added, among other modifications.

It is not literally a space ship, of course, it just looks like one. It is a surface effect craft that could also fly at altitude when required.

The parts have no pins and sockets, so lining things up is more tricky than with a conventional western-made kit. Because of that, I found that I often left the model for a day to let the glue dry. Handling it, it was too easy to knock things out of whack when they are held in place just by a small glued area. The tailplanes and ventral fins are examples. In contrast, the wings, tailplanes, and outrigger wheel pods (on the hull sides beneath the wings) are ‘plugged in’ Airfix style and are therefore more robust. Parts fit varies from good to OK, with some exceptions described later.

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The ejector seats are highly detailed. I omitted everything from the back cockpit because you cannot see any of it through the side windows. The kit does not include crew, but I put a jet pilot (Airfix I think) in the front cockpit. Black and white film of the crew boarding the real thing shows them in light colored flight suits. I used flight test orange.

Construction of the side sponsons (whatever they are called) is tricky in that their two halves meet only at their ends for a short bit of gluing. What is more, one half has to bow outward (under compression) which puts the glued contact areas under sheer. I found it best to glue one end and tape it up, then the other end. Then the upper halves of the sponson bases go on. These go the other way up to my first instinct. The clear instruction diagrams are a great help with that. The lower halves of those long plates that form the undersides of the sponsons are almost symmetrical, but they differ slightly, so take care to get each on the correct side.

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Tip: Do not glue the engine assembly to the body until after painting and decaling (applying the transfers). Painting and decaling the engines is tricky otherwise, only partly because of the fins in the way. On the other hand, the whole thing is such a weird shape that I found the engine block — glued to the body — was an indispensable handle with which to hold the model when painting it…

I used some filler on the gear doors, which I built closed. The outrigger doors are very fiddly and I used much filler. However, I expect that if you build it wheels-down, all would be OK. Also I used filler on the join of the nose cone (crew compartments) to the main body and various other places.

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The canopy, which consists of three transparent parts, needed some filling and filing to obtain anything approximating to a smooth contour with the fuselage.

The wings seem to me to have too much dihedral when compared to photos of the real thing. Bending them down a bit before the glue set solved that, then fill in the resulting gap…

Some photos of the real thing show it with the ventral fins, some without. I lost one when it broke off unnoticed by me. It must be in my room still, but I know I will never see it again.

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I brush-painted it in acrylics. To highlight panel lines, I used pencil on the matt grey and Flory Models ‘dark dirt’ on the gloss white. I then coated the whole thing in satin varnish.

External links

Bartini VVA-14 short film on YouTube of actual flight testing in 1972

Cold war Space Ship??? ,Bartini Beriev VVA-14, developed in the Soviet Union during the early 1970s on YouTube — the most extensive film of the real thing I have found

The Strangest Aircraft Ever Built: The Soviet Union’s VVA-14 documentary with a high-quality graphic rendering of the VVA-14 on YouTube