Sebastijan

That may be, but then you've got an even bigger error, as RIO's cockpit is a late D with square PTIDS screen instead of a fishbowl one, jdam coordinate input box and a LANTIRN sidestick controller.

keep in mind Blue 41 served for around two decades, so the weathering is anything from slightly faded paint job with paint oversprays over the tactical number areas to the extreme weathering as you can see in these latest 201x shots.

Looks like the change in colour happened between 2011 and 2012 2011: https://russianplanes.net/id193497 blue 41 cool shot with live missiles and sorbtsiya pods 2012: https://russianplanes.net/id153393 red 41 2015: https://russianplanes.net/id168413 same bird after overhaul now designated red 16 I prefer blue 41

Just found a few profiles and a photo showing it from the left side, being in a row of several Flankers, but you've already probably seen that one.

Guardians of the north sheet? Blue 41? I'll check my archive

no it wouldn't - you would save yourself some time building quite a complicated landing gear construction, but the question is, how well the flaps, slats and spoilers would fit in clean configuration, as they are clearly moulded to be shown deployed. I plan starting mine shortly - like a build review and comparison to FineMolds F-14A as one of the, if not THE best Tomcat in 1:72.

you are correct - first pic you posted is taken after Syrian campaign. On my pic, the demarcation can be clearly seen in the nose area (around the white rectangular panel), at least on my monitor (colour calibrated for photography work). But my point was that if you plan to do an accurate model, choose a subject with plenty of reference photographs and stick to it. You are right, you cannot trust photos 100% but if the pattern is repeating, then you can be sure about it. And from what I've seen so far, looking at hundreds of Su-33 photos, I am pretty certain, some Su-33s had more neutral colour applied at some point in their service life. But as I said in my previous post, that doesn't necessarily mean such colour is standard. As for the comparing the samples to the real deal - automatically, if you have an "accurate" paint sample, it's gonna look too dark on a model - scale effect ain't a myth and it doesn't mean just to add certain amount of white to lighten up the colours - actually mixing the accurate "scale tone" is quite a science.

I am not so sure MRP201 is entirely incorrect. There appear to be neutral grey and blueish-grey colours used (The pic Nino posted is clearly neutral), as are soft and hard demarcation camouflage and last but not lease - check the nose area on this pic and you will clearly see, the bottom is more blueish than the top gray - so definitely 4 different colours on that bird. I don't say it is a norm, but browsing through photos for reference can yield interesting results. https://russianplanes.net/id196211

Actually the colour of the cartridge is sometimes slightly different than of the surrounding panel, but the countermeasure panels on Su-27s are always bare metal. I'd suggest @Aigore when the paintjob will be done, to just mask the panels, and spray them with different sheen metallic colour to the one he used (preferably slightly darker) and then unmask the whole deal... should create a nice contrasty effect between the panel and the individual cartridges. Su-33s on the other hand, due different CM location, have individual cartridges without the unpainted surrounding panel.

Not sure why you went so far to mask each individual countermeasure cartridge, as the whole panel is in bare metal. Here's a pic I did back in 2011 where those panels can be clearly seen as well as stained empty cartridges.

They should be fine, I guess. I've used Airfix decals on my tails and were spot on. Maybe some slight trimming would be required, but nothing drastic.

Actually the first boxing was released in 2017 and another one late last year. It's a blast of a kit with really just a few faults. Here's mine I finished this year: https://vvsmodelling.com/2019/05/14/grumman-f-14a-tomcat-vf-41-black-aces/

the lower arm should be angled outwards while in the kit, it's pointing straight backwards. The difference is most noticeable if you look at the model from the front.

Thanks guys!

Once again, thank you very much!