seawinder

Having built both, my opinion is that Hasegawa and Kinetic are similar in ease/difficulty of assembly, although areas of difficulty may not be the same. I have just looked at my Hasegawa and Kinetic builds side by side and am hard pressed to discern any significant (to me) difference in the curvature of the spines. Perhaps you could explain further?

Look at Step 2 of the instructions. There's a note: "Remove for open door." It's a simple task to cut along the indented lines, and there's a replacement open door that was clearly visible on the sprue as you were telling us the kit didn't provide for it. The slight protrusion of the machine gun barrels is only on the outer two guns, so Tamiya very properly (as they also did with the newer tooling) provided just the leading edge openings for the inboard pairs of guns. The kit provides the later fishtail exhausts. I've never seen injected moldings for such exhausts with

Thanks, GW. I'm doing an 80s bird, so I'll go with black/purple mix.

That's really helpful, thanks! Sounds like a very dark brown with perhaps a dab of OD will be appropriate for a not-too-old airframe.

Tamiya instructions call for front sections to be "khaki." Should that be interpreted as olive drab or tan? Thanks! Pip

Yes, probably overdone, but the rivet detail on my copy looks to be very delicate and petite, so hopefully it won't show too much under some paint and clear coats.

I'm just about finished building a Kinetic CF-188 and generally have enjoyed the project. I've also done one Hasegawa a few years ago. I didn't have much more trouble getting the Kinetic together, although it may be that the company made a few modifications to the nose and windscreen that make things fit better than the first generation F/A-18C boxing. I agree that the Kinetic doesn't fall together, but I would characterize it more as fiddly than as ill-fitting. I found the main gear alignment easier than the Hasegawa -- the angle strut pretty much locks things in place. I particularly liked t

I have a copy of LS-012; sure enough, the small letters/numbers are rendered as gray areas. Not sure whether it'll be obvious to the naked eye (almost certainly not to my 75-year-old pair), but what would people recommend for an aftermarket sheet of stencils?

Just have to ask: will you really build 7 1/48 hogs in your lifetime? Where will you put them? I'm excited at the prospect of a good 1/48 A-10, but I can't foresee doing more than one. Perhaps my perspective as a 75-year-older is different from yours?

FWIW, I pretty much followed Gary's route on the CF-188 build currently underway. Like him, I forgot about the refuel bay and cover until too late. I decided not to bother with the bay piece and was able to secure the cover piece into the opening with little difficulty and pretty good fit. I also thinned the forward surface of the front nose gear bay bulkhead (probably not necessary) and filed some plastic off around its edges to mitigate against any possible step. It all worked out pretty well and only required a few small bits of filler in a couple of small gaps.

FWIW, I had a bottle of Mr. Color Air Superiority Blue, but ended up using a bottle from SMS Premium instead because it was a closer match to my FS595B chip. If you haven't tried them, they're really nice paints; no thinning required, available at USAGundam.

Kinetic has boxings for F/A-18As. While all their Hornet kits have options for some needed items (nose, lower front fuselage), the O sprue with the earlier vertical tails, AFAIK, is only found in the F/A-18A and CF-188 boxings. Ultracast (Canada) has a large stock of older decals. Some are really expensive, but they've got a bunch of Superscale F/A-18A sheets that are reasonably priced and include markings with the paint scheme the OP is after. Here's a link to the Hornet section at Ultracast. Scroll down a ways to find the Superscale items. https://www.ultracast.ca/1-48-Decal

Just for the record, some of their older kits are now showing up in red boxes, including the Spitfire I/II (no. A05115), so you have to be sure you've got the right kit number.

Just to add a bit to WymanV's post, if you want to do any of the late Merlin Spits (VIII, IX, XVI), Eduard has them all covered, and they're really good kits. Fiddly in the way Eduard always seems to be: why mold it in one piece when you can do it in four? However, they're very well engineered and fit very well where it counts if you take your time and study the instruction drawings carefully. People complain about the exhaust manifolds/stacks, but they do go together fine once you figure out what aligns with what. My only real nit is the two-part upper engine cowling. It's possible to eradica

No problem. 😃

Yes. I posted the MRP numbers to the thread you started at Britmodeller. MRP 241, 101 and 102 for FS 36081, 34079 and 34102 respectively. Ever tried Google? 😉

So I guess what you meant to say was "no aftermarket company has made ..." Yes, that's clearer.

... which makes the first sentence of your OP a bit questionable?

Forgetting the Hobby Boss perhaps?

I'm currently building the 2018 "60 Years of NORAD" display plane, SN 188776. Closeup photos of the cockpit area pretty clearly show it with an SJU-17 seat. I've got a resin seat from Wolfpack that fits the Kinetic cockpit tub no problem.

I finally looked through the Two Bobs instruction sheet for the decal set. According to them, the item is a Raytheon GAS-1 GPS anti-jamming antenna.

FWIW, Wolfpack has a GPS antenna as part of their CF-18 package. It's much smaller than the item in the photos.

Yes, the R2D2 thing figured in a lot of the posted responses seven years ago. Clever, but not totally helpful.

There was an ARC thread about seven years ago where someone asked about the disk-shaped dorsal fairing behind the cockpit on CF-188s. At the time, AlienFrogModeller, who had just finished a beautiful model of an RCAF Hornet and seemed to have some inside information, said he wasn't allowed to talk about it. Are we far enough on in time that somebody can share any information about it? I also wonder if any aftermarket outfit has released a 1/48 resin piece. I'll obviously scratchbuild it if necessary ...

I thought I just read that at least some CF-188s were refitted with SJU-17 seats (or something very similar) in recent years. I'm building the Kinetic kit using "60 Years of NORAD" anniversary markings from TwoBobs. I've just invested in a Wolfpack SJU-17 seat and am hoping it's appropriate for that plane?