Inquisitor

Nope, your perception of the petals is wrong. You're clearly not zoom-in in enough and not paying attention to each of the edges/borders of each petal. It's clearly interlocked despite your game of drawing red lines. I can do better. The second pic, what you see as a illusion of being adjacent because you're only paying attention to the lateral ones visible which, which are slightly angled downwards due to the vector trust resting position making their edge/corners look adjacent. but if you zoom-in on the right side one on the bottom ones you can clearly see the edges interlo

Low to zero chance the 1/32 will ever be released. They ambitiously announced a ton of projects and only really released a couple in the decade since then. They never 'released' their 1/48 F-5A anyways, iirc and according to the story molds were sold to a UK company, Tiger hobbies Limited, that showed and sold them in one Telford and never seen since then. Original F-5 by 'Tiger Hobbies' thread here:

Like other people said, 1/72 is the preferred scale for the Japanese market and they already did the SG version which contains most of the parts/sprues needed for the EX. While they haven't made the SG parts or boxing in 1/48 scale.

I have a story related to idiots in the government and military secrets. In my country of Pejejistan, over 15 years ago members of the current political party in power tried to pass a law banning scale models and toys related to military and emergency response vehicles. Their argument was that scales models were so accurate and probably contained secrets and weaknesses of them that organized crime, drug traffickers and terrorist would easily acquire then to study such vehicles in detail and plan strategies to attack against those used by the government back then 🙄 Yeah right, like your husk of

Nope, It's definitely the Dragon kit. Check hobby search. The description already says the parts are by Dragon. The photos of the parts list and sprues here https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10776957 Two loose fuselage halves and some parts attached to them., clear sprue, one tiny parts sprue Then look at the sprues of the dragon kit review here: http://modelingmadness.com/scott/mod/dyf23preview.htm same as above. Link is to the tamiya rebox of the Italeri/Testors since I couldn't find other sprue shots: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/tamiya-60715-northrop-mdd-yf-23--134522 It's

If we go down the copyright rabbit hole. You'd also need to ask for permission or pay the original painter/designer of that tail art. IIRC is Pier Paolo Maglio who is also a member of this forum.

If you take decisions based on a single opinion, then you'd pass on a lot of good things. Tamiya kits, specially some of their higher end car kits have very tight tolerances. Dryfitting every thing looks nice, add a few layers of primer, paint and so on and each micrometer adds up to make things not fit. If the opinion of a single person was all that mattered then according to Doctor MIG/Dragan Cvetic the ICM MiG-25 and Zvezda Mi-24, both 1/72 scale, would be the worst fitting kits in the world. They aren't perfect and not the worst either, I've built both and as experienced modeller

I hope they improve the molds from those test shots and polish them more to remove those tool marks.

You can see that curve line in this photo too, although the real item ends at the panel line before the leading edge and is a single constant radius, instead of making an S like the FM CAD. Also remember that on CAD depending on visualitation edges and lines are highlighted more prominently than what they would really look.

The people who complain about no cockpit detail, are the people who will replace it with a Quinta set anyways same way they did even with the nice GWH Flankers and Minibase Su-33 cockpits too. Flat cockpit saves Zvezda development and saves you people removing the detail that you not gonna like anyways 😉

1 part is different. The screen or what I assume is the HUD repeater that goes on the rear cockpit is the difference between the two. You can see the little part marked early on the lower left corner of the early parts picture. And between the sticks and headrest detail in the later.

You can look for the GWH Su-35 thread in this forum and witness all the Drama for single panel line for yourself 😉 Or even more drama go to the GWH F-15B/D thread where the kit was unbuildable to a certain individual because it didn't include pilot figures.

A single slightly deeper and thicker panel line in their Su-35 made it unbuildable, the worst kit in the world, utter trash to some people 😉

And I can hear the cries of people declaring it as the worst kit in modelling history dethroning the Su-57 and Mi-24 even before the plastic is out.🙄

S I recently used their TAC2013 sheet for an 8th sq. F-2A. Mine had a few problems with the sizing of the decals. Probably the original design is for the 1/48 and downscaled for the 1/72 without crosss checking sizing with the real plastic. And in my sheet the stencils are a copy/paste from their previous samurai F-2B sheet. That created a few problems. a few of the stencils only included those for the B version like #20 and 38 strips which are much shorter. Looking at your photo, they fixed that and yours now include the correct longer 20A and 38A stencils. The tiny panel numbers sten

Just a heads up. That's the old tool raised panel lines F-15, its intakes are narrower than the 'newer' recessed panel line tool.

It's a KH thing. They just threw in their whole bunch of weapon sprues regardless of if they can be used/cleared on the aircraft or not and copy/paste the same weapons instructions for every russian plane kit. Their Yak-130 kit has the Kh-58ME missiles thrown in the box and on the instructions together with R-27, R-60, Kh-29, Kh-31, KAB-1500 and so on. 🙄

I'd recommend you edit your post and indicate more clearly which one is the KH and which one is the HB in your photos (left or right, up or down) for those not familiar with the plane or the kits and planning to buy any of them. Only 1 out of 4 photos you mention which one is the HB. The head on one I had to go back and forth referencing the second photo's markings to make out which is which. The 3rd you mention the KH spine's problem but you don't indicate if the kit photo is the KH or HB. And the last one with 4 kits lined up, and someone not familiar with them would have a hard time disting

Not by Iwata, but some chinese company named ARKHITECT and inspired by the IWATA HPCP (HP-C Plus) airbrush design.

All the different adapters is one of the things still lacking the aftermarket space. AMC only has the BD3-USK-A with the pointier end. Not knowledgeable in all the adapter variations, but that rounder end/edges adapter in your photo is included in the Eduard Brassin B-8M1 rocket launcher set.

Just when I bought a couple more of Hasegawa kits. The Hasegawa one is still a good kit with A and B versions in the same box in 1/72 scale. Got a few incorrect panels and limited riveting compared to the FM CADs. Lacks the niceties of modern kits like full intake trunks and better detailing in the cockpit and other areas. Can't see if FM has a full intake trunk from the CAD images, but I hope so. OTOH for a bit more than the price of a single FM kit I can buy 2 Hasegawa white box, hmmm...

What he said. The Su-27 in model form isn't a tailsitter because of its shape and position of the main gear in relation to the center of gravity even from a model stand point. The other thing is, the nose gear of the vanilla Su-27 doesn't lend to a pin reinforcement, there are weak points elsewhere that will break first and can't be simply reinforced by a pin.

That won't fix the crack on the windshield, thou.

scalemates got the weight of the UB box at 2.69 lb. while hlj list it at almost 3 lb. Far from the 1.1 lb you're expecting. The vanilla flanker shouldn't be far from the same weight.

It's not like model companies have hundreds of molding machines churning out their whole catalog 24/7. They have to think what makes money for them and plan what to re-release and put on their machines. If they're molding new sci-fi and construction machines frequently then that might what's selling and making money for them. There's also the other reboxing deals and contracts in place mentioned. Like the Eduard scooters LE. There's the Hobby 2000 reboxings from which they've molded a certain number of sought after old kits like the short nose phantoms and F-111. We don't know how