SebastianP

The flight lead in the box art has the ECM antennas on the intake corners that were deleted on the SM, so maybe it's just the same jet pre-modernization? Remember, a lot of the Su-27SM jets are rebuilds, not new manufacture.

Every Hasegawa 1/48 "F-15E" prior to the 2010 boxing (the current white box) had the old CFTs, up to and including the Ace Combat/idolm@ster special release from 2009. In 1/72, it continued a couple of years longer, and the first kit with new CFTs was the F-15I "Ra'am". In other words, you don't need to go *that* far back to find one with CFTs more suited to an F-15C. Also, Hasegawa has released the 1/72 kit as a single-seater with CFTs at least once, in the form of the "57th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" boxing from 2013, though that kit didn't include the bomb sprue that holds

That's for an 1/48 scale kit (haven't checked which one), it will definitely not fit this one. Also, at the moment the only kind of aftermarket products I'd expect to even fit this kit would be weapons, since it can most likely be safely assumed that it will have the same stores stations as the Su-33 and Su-27SM kits, anything else is pretty much up in the air at this point, especially since the Su-27UB twin-seater isn't out yet AFAIK.

Hasegawa includes the CFT hardpoints in all of their 1/48 Eagle kits - they're on the C runner, with the fuel tanks, missiles and tail surfaces. They also include the CFT hardpoints in all of their 1/72 Strike Eagle kits - in this case, they're on the H-runner, together with the MERs and the Rockeye bombs, which are still included even in the modern F-15E releases. I have no idea whether the CFTs included in the modern kits have the proper mounting holes for these hardpoints though, so aligning them might be a severe chore if you're starting from a new kit.

I'm going to cry in a corner for a bit and pretend that your model is 1/8 scale instead of 1/48... because that's what it will look like compared to my results I'm sure, and I haven't even started on mine yet.

This is fantastic news, I can't wait to get my hands on these. My only sorrow is that Zvezda molded the top half of their Su-33 in one piece instead of split like the Su-27SM (and most likely this kit) - it will probably take much more surgery than I'm willing to attempt to do a proper Tomcatski with a tandem cockpit and folding wings.... I do hope a non-canard Su-30 with the refuelling probe and offset IRST is in the cards at some point.

I'm pretty certain that all the paint the military uses is mixed more or less right before use, just like how your hardware store does it, and the "inspection" process likely goes something like "test spray the mixed paint, let dry, check against the paint chip in the big binder, and the officer in charge goes "close enough" and you can use it", for pretty much anything other than Have Glass paint and the like. It's inefficient as heck to cart around ready-made paint in the proper shades from the factory, especially when you need paint in the kind of quantities a military paint shed does, and

I don't think this is really the thread for posting wishlists and complaining about other kits. Let's stick to the actual topic, please? Such as, what are *the* most important things to remember while building this beastie? So far, I have the following on my "must buy" list: 1 - a package of assorted metal colors (for the exhausts and engine access panels) 2 - a package of assorted clear colors (for weathering of the above) 3 - the kit-specific masking set Optional extras: 4 - Begemot decal sheet 5 - Mr Paint Su-35S set

Thank you Matt, that puts a few things into perspective for sure. Also, after having reviewed the instructions for the Begemot decals, it looks like all of them are primarily for the early examples with the flare launchers on top of the stinger rather than the configuration that GWH offers, so I'd essentially have to use the kit instructions as my guide for the airframe specific markings anyway... It'll be a year or so before I have to worry about the decals anyway though, at the planned pace for the construction of this thing. 🙂

Thanks for the offer. I have no idea what options are even on the Begemot sheet right now, I was thinking of ordering one together with the masking set and figuring out which one to make after studying it for a bit. The kit decals doesn't even have the option to do the eggplant, so I wasn't considering it before, but if the Begemot sheet has it I'm going to have to think really hard on the matter. 🙂

Thanks for the tip. I'm thinking I'm probably going to be building up my supplies to tackle this over a few months before I start, I'm most likely also going to need to get the Begemot decal sheet given what happen to Matt from Doog's models, and I really need to get some better metallic paints than what I have. Right now though, I'm plain out of cash, as that kit ate my entire hobby budget for this month.

I had the extreme fortune of being able to pick up one of these kits at the local hobby show this weekend, together with a set of Ammo MIG colors for it. I thought I'd read enough reviews to know what to expect, but just seeing it in person (and being able to compare it with another builder's Kitty Hawk build) really made it apparent how much of a gem this kit is. I am probably in way over my head with this kit, but I'm going to take it really slow, contract out some of the bits I usually have trouble with (I'm handing the cockpit over to a friend who's painted a couple of thousan

I *think* so, though pictures of the actual APACHE missile, especially in live configuration, are apparently rare as hen's teeth and I haven't been able to find one yet. The only image I've been able to find of a definite APACHE missile is a flight test article in bright orange that's in a museum somewhere.

Other way around, the APACHE came first, and the SCALP-EG and Storm Shadow are based on the existing APACHE airframe. It's IIRC a lot easier to stick a single warhead in a missile originally designed to carry the same weight in cluster munitions than it is to fit cluster munitions into a weapon originally designed for a unitary warhead, which is the same reason why the JSOW cluster version came first.

If it's the original boxing of the Kitty Hawk kit (with the Russian Air Force decals), I'd save my money and go for the Great Wall Hobby kit, because it lacks the thrust-vectoring nozzles (they're just straight in the kit), and it has the upward-facing flare launchers on the tailboom, which will cost you more to fix than the difference up to the GWH kit. If it's the Chinese Air Force version of the Kitty Hawk kit, which comes with resin replacements for the exhausts and tailboom... I'd still save my money and go for the Great Wall Hobby kit, because the GWH kit looks like a much ea

I was apparently misremembering. The article was this one, and it does indeed not say that the aircraft used TF30s, it was just stored (with or without engines?) in between rounds of testing? http://www.grummanpark.org/content/tomcat-tales-f-14b-aircraft-no-7-buno-157986 Anyway, the kit I have under construction at the moment that I'm considering using the decals on has had the forward fuselage constructed with the NACA vents, but I haven't installed any of the ECM blisters (or parts where they're integrated) yet. Would NACA vents, F110-GE-400 engines, and no chin pod b

Yeah, that's the version I had too. Box came with the seven-hole gun vents, the very early type gun vents, and a non-vent and a NACA vent for the blister behind the muzzle. The review I found says the instructions are for the 1981 version of the F-14B (I think that would be the first round of F110 testing), but IIRC the article I read about the plane says they switched back to TF30 engines after the first round of testing then back to F110 engines for a second round while they were working on the F-14D, and the pictures of the aircraft in its current state show it as having TF30 engines again.

Thanks for the offer, but it's not really necessary I think. :) I just noticed that 157986 as displayed on the Intrepid has the NACA gun vents, which is what I had installed on my current F-14B kit during assembly. Which immediately leads to the question "when were they installed", and "did 157986 ever have them at the same time as the F110 engines?" Because if it did, I can just finish my current kit up in white and use the old decal sheet as is...

Related question: I bought the 1/72 version of the Hasegawa "Super Tomcat" way back when, and ended up painting it up as a what-if due to my long disagreement with white paint. The decal sheet ended up in a box, which I found a little while ago and since I can now actually get white paint to remain white.... maybe it's time to use it. Problem is, I no longer have the instructions, and I think the kit may be too old for them to have been scanned and put on 1999.co.jp where I usually get replacement instructions. And I remember that the kit came with two sets of gun vents

Oh wow, so someone *finally* came out with an accurate 1/72 AH-64D while I was away from my modelling desk? That wasn't a decade too soon. :) I may definitely have to get one... The helicopter looks awesome, how easy was the main rotor assembly? (I still have nightmares about the Italeri H-60 family in 1/72... which are not helped by having four of them in my stash...)

Such pages as you describe are exactly what I want... but I want them in one place, and this thread is a starting point, a way to get people talking about it and pointing out all the resources that are out there that simply can't be found because the web has gotten too big and search engines too optimized for "relevance" as measured in "which site has our ads on it?" Also, while this is small scale right now and will rapidly get unwieldy as more opinions and subjects are added, it suits my informational purposes right now, hopefully the discussion will start leading towards putting

Collecting links to various such discussions was one of the ideas I had for the thread, but finding them is nigh impossible unless you know what you're looking for. Like your link in that post - I would never have found that in a million years, because I didn't know about that Tapatalk group and I don't think Google would have pointed me in the right direction without some very specific keywords. Edit: (Getting to such articles was half the reason I posted the thread in the first place, make a big splash and the people with long memories and good link archives will start posting t

Turboprop engines are just jets with a fan too big to be encased. :) And frankly, an E-3, E-4, E-6, E-8, KC-135 or RC-135 is not an airliner, so they too belong on my list. :p Oh, and I get your meaning that one thread may be hard to find, but this is supposed to be blatant pinning bait so people won't *have* to look for it, it'll be right there. At one point I wanted to just start a wiki for this stuff to replace the 72 scale census and let the public have at it, but I suck at wiki formatting. @Hoops, I've seen your post, I'll let it be for a

Gentlemen, present your arguments - why is the Fujimi E-2C better than the Hasegawa or vice versa. Why should someone pick one over the other? I will try to summarize for inclusion on the list when you're done.

OK, have added the following: F-100 Super Sabre F-101 Voodoo F-102 Delta Dagger F-104 Starfighter F-105 Thunderchief F-106 Delta Dart F-111 Aardvark A-4 Skyhawk AV-8 Harrier II Harrier and Sea Harrier I also changed the rules for the order kits are listed in, forget the "best goes first" rule, it's more "newest goes first unless something is obviously head and shoulders above everything else".