Inquisitor

I think you're mistaking Cold War Studio's conversion from RBT to BM for the ICM kit.

I'm sure my comment will offend a few people that await the next new novelty AM or extra bling out of the box, but those bronze exhaust nozzles don't make much sense. Yes, they have better detail than their older resin ones included in the kit. Yes, their lips are really thin, yet the amur reaver and amigo models ones are just as detailed if not more and the lips are also pretty thin. And if you say it's because thin resin ones could be damaged in transit, should I remind you KH already shipped theirs in thermoformed plastic boxes to protect them and now their bronze ones too? And the AMUR/Amigo ones weren't easily damaged either. The bronze ones from photos also seem to have a lot of imperfections in the lip area between outer and inner petals. Also being bronze and pretty heavy 8gr/cm^3 vs resin 1.1gr/cm^3, despite flankers not being inherently tail sitters, you're adding unnecessary weight to the back end. And of course it takes a lot of time to make them, let's just say if their bronze is being cast via lost wax process, they're doing something in 3 or 5 times more steps and cost than a resin piece. Dunno, I feel like it's an extension to their overengineering and not throughly thought out stuff... And no, I'm only criticizing their bronze nozzles, not the landing gear legs.

Speaking of programs about models. There's a new one with James May, you may know him from Top Gear and Grand Tour, called James May's Big Trouble in Model Britain. It's two episodes about Hornby and Airfix, aired in the UK's BBC.

Hope I'm not poking on a touchy subject and Raymond can give some answers? But lately I've been noticing that luckymodel has been late to stock or add new products for certain popular brands. Some of Kitty Hawk's latest releases like their RF-5E and MiG-25RB/RBS don't show up on Luckymodel, their Su-34 has also disappeared from their listings. Also I've been waiting for Model collect's B-2 with GBU-57 which hasn't been stocked yet as well as some of their other releases, while I've seen arrive to other stores as soon as dec'18. I ask this because I've been waiting on that B-2 I have on order with Luckymodel since november. I remember them dropping AMK because of the MiG-31 distribution problems when it was released. Some time ago noticed they dropped Takom too. Is it a reestructuring or problem/disagreement with their distributors?

Adding to what others have said, another borked detail on the KH kit: - Retraction mechanism in the main landing gear is incorrect. KH put a single solid arm that's supposed to rotate? It would never retract the MLG due to its geometry. (Photo taken from Modeling News review). Also its joint with the mainlanding gear strut should outboard, not inboard. Zvezda is correctly represented with a Y shaped arm that folds while rectracting the gear. Another detail that Zvezda kit wins over the KH's. -Both sets of auxiliary intakes can be depicted open or closed. Front ones, the ones that also function as FOD covers, can be moved open or closed after assembly. Although the rear ones are glued open or shut.

V3 also has a different photoetch fret with part to detail the exhaust nozzle.

You forgot the biggest mistake in their F-15 kits! They don't include pilot figures, thus they're unbuildable!!!

Then someone will complain the weathering is overdone, nothing in real life looks like that blah blah blah :v

And the white box ones too. It's not like they churn everything in their catalogue 24/7. Some products go out of stock don't resume production for a period but eventually they come back. I build 1/72 and their Su-33 and Su-35 appeared as discontinued on japanese stores not too long ago, for around a year but then they came back.

On the next page on the thread flankerman posted a series of pictures of a MiG-25 airframe and you can see clear the curvature of those couple of panels.

It's not the belly. It's how the sides gradual transition from flat aft of the wheel wells to round at the rear end in the real plane. While KH kit remains flat all the way down to the strakes and sharply transition to round. I already posted an image and explanation in the original KH MiG-25 Thread. On the posted image, there's a panel line on the red line, below it shaded in red that area those panels are curved in the real plane while KH that area is flat.

167, 168 and 169. set 47301/46301 are for the Su-27, and although it also mentions Su-35 I think it's referring to the Su-35 (T-10M) prototypes, not the in service Su-35S.

2-3 times the cost of the Kitty Hawk kit for the C2D intakes? Sell the kitty hawk kit, buy the ICM one and you'd still have money for the XMM corrected intakes, not that they are necessary if you aren't a rivet counter. And you'd have a better fit and overall better shape accuracy.

In the almost 20 years I've been a HLJ customer I've had payment problems, packages lost, damaged items, lost items, missing parts, estimated shipping cost problems, etc. All have been solved in due time by a few clicks on their customer support section and typing a message to explain your problem. If you had time to ask questions here, you'd have time use the customer support on the HLJ site to explain the problem. I don't know if this will help. their shipping cost estimations are based on the measurements/weight of the items and/or their combined totals stacked, in their database it should be listed as LxWxH but sometimes an items gets its dimensions inputted in the wrong order which results in a ridiculous amount when the system calculates the total packing size. An example I can say is I ordered two sets of diy decal sheets, one clear and one white, two almost flat items. Each on their own had like a 400 yen shipping cost, but when put together for shipping it gave me something like a 3000+ yen EMS or SAL parcel cost. What was the problem? one of the sheet sets in the database the length was out of order so instead of both being 12 inch length and stacked flat. The system calculated a packing size of 12x12x8inch box or something like that. It was solved by a message on their customer support page explaining the problem. They corrected the mistake on their database and shipping cost in my order. That was before the site redesign as for a single item. So another possibility is something got messed up with the database during the redesign and the product measurements are getting mixed up.

There are a couple reviews and builds where they say 50/50 mix of Gunze Sangyo H25 Sky Blue and H46 Emerald Green is the perfect match for the eduard prepainted photoetch. That mix was tested by another fellow modeller to be a match.