a4s4eva

Sharp work. Well done. Attractive scheme as well

Wing time There's a nasty gap on the wing join and there's not much you can do to make it better. I'm up for filling and sanding but I'm used to it now. Apart from the gap between the fuselage and wing, I did have to adjust the fit to ensure the top of the wing is level with the fuselage. I checked this before I glued the fuselage halves together placing a shim on one side. The gap on the underside is quite large however. I used pieces of 0.005" card to fill it then CA. This side was better , I only used card in a few places. Thick CA was used elsewhere. You can see the approximation

I usually leave weapons until last on a build, which means I rush them, or give up and never use them. This time I've decided to do them along the way. I've found enough images online of camouflaged GR'1's with overwing rails to satisfy me that they could have been used in a major post gulf war conflict. But I wasn't really happy with Kittyhawk's representation of what looks like a LAU-7, so I robbed some from the junk box. I think these came from a Hasegawa Phantom or Tomcat kit. Next was the pylons and the kit ones are totally wrong for an RAF Jag. I did consider trying to shape the

Wow, thats a nasty gap. I've not had that on the 2 I built, but I haven't used intakes either.

Intakes - as usual these don't fit well. but forewarned is forearmed. The intakes are made of 2 L shaped pieces with the joins along the lower outer and upper inner corners. I was advised to not follow the instructions, which call for you to glue the intakes together then attach this assembly to the aircraft. if you do this the box formed by the intakes is slightly wider than the fuselage and you'll end up with a step. The advice was to attach (temporarily or permanently) the inner piece to the fuselage and then sand the pieces so you end up with no steps. This works pretty well and you

IMHO the Kinetic F/A-18 would still be great value at $40 USD without the weapons. Sometimes I think modellers want everything for nothing and forget the kit maker has to make a profit. That said it's great that Kinetic are looking at redoing the weapons seats. I have some of the Eduard AIM 9 resin sets, and while they're really nice it's a real pain to remove the missile body from the block. I much prefer plastic ones with comparable detail .

WOW !

Noting there are 3 or 4 SuE 's on the market now and even though some of them are old, I just can't see you selling significant numbers of them. I think you'd be better of concentrating on other subjects. Personally, I wouldn't buy 1 SuE, never mind multiples,

Engine covers. I'd heard these could be problematic but mine fitted OK. And when I say fitted OK I mean I only spent 10 mins standing various surfaces to get a decent fit. I glued the underside panel to fuselage first, then I glued the 2 side panels to the underside panels. (This photo was taken later and shows the CDS and underside strakes ). Then I tackled gluing the side panels to the fuselage. I needed some serious clamping. I used Mr Cement S - why ? Well I watched Spencer Pollard's video on glues (Initially I thought - really.... what can I learn about glue, I've been building

not to my knowledge.. I'm hoping Airfix will do a new tool Ja one day (along with a Buccaneer and Tornado)

Stunning

More construction...... Will it ever end Here you can see the engine area. The bright surface in the spine is CA which I flooded the area with. Here's the right airbrake bay, I scratch built some detail the main feature is the refuelling point. I used the excellent walkaround photos from Britmodeller. The rest of the stuff is fantasy, just to add some stuff there. The red line shows a lip formed by the back of the engine bay, i.e.. this doesn't go right under the lower fuselage. From dry fitting the engine covers, this looks to be correct. The instructions don't give you much help. S

Thanks I'm sure you'll do a fine job Andrew, probably with less hassle than me :D Thanks mate

Deviating from the instructions I decided to attach the front and rear fuselage pieces on each side together. Fit here was Ok. I added a fishing sinker to the nose Squeezing in the cockpit and nose wheel bay I joined the fuselage. I mainly used CA glue and did a section at a time, starting with the upper join. I got a decent join along the upper seam. Prior this, following a tip from a build on Britmodeller, I cut out the triangle shaped scoop on the upper fuselage and replaced it with some card so it appears there a a scoop there. My little strip of plastic didn't help and I didn't

Well Raymond, despite the minor fault with fins, and the instructions, IMHO the Kinetic Kit is clearly superior than the Hasegawa kit. It has intakes, much nicer moulding, a better looking parts breakdown, much better decals, weapons and it's RRP is a heap less. I think you're onto a winner here.

I really hate having to install the landing gear this early. I could have cut the legs and pinned them for re-installation later. But to be honest I think this would be difficult to pull off accurately. Because the legs are so buried in the depths of the undercarriage bays I can understand why Kittyhawk went this way. The legs have an interesting attachment method. I used 5 min epoxy for attaching these. I also left out the APU from this side (because it's not there in real life. I'll scratch-build the refuelling receptacle and some other stuff later. You can also see I got a reasonable fit

I'm not a fan of kits that want you to have things open. I much prefer my kits all buttoned up, if I want to open a panel then I find you really need resin to make it look good. Here are some of the doors on the Jag.. I decided to close up everything I could. These panels didn't quite fit closed straight from the box. But at least the contours were right. About 1 mm was removed from the edge on the underside, plus some from the end. I also removed some of the lip from the fuselage part as this was stopping the door sitting flush. I did get a bit carried away on one side so some 0.005"

I disagreed (and posted as such)

Cockpit tub and seat are done. All in all I'm happy. I painted everything Tamiya German grey then picked out the details with Vallejo Acrylics. I used some generic placards to busy it up a bit. Certainly not 100 % Accurate but it looks good enough. This the Paragon seat with a fair bit ground of the bottom Here it is all together, minus the glareshield

I'd like a Bell 429, but IMHO you don't get rich in the model business, and you get even less rich making Helicopters :D

You "guessed" a while back about a F-14 from "a favourite manufacturer" . Is this same sort to guess Raymond? :D :D

Didn't one the recent Fightertown sheets have an Iranian F-14 sheet? I like their original (Asia minor?) scheme as well

And yet, for me (and many others I expect) the hard wings are a plus. Especially as most of the one's I'd build will have the wings swept so I can fit them into the cabinet Mind you I'll likely buy both once I've seen some reviews/builds.

Me too, the lack of modern 1/48 subjects is a real drawback

Best Hong Kong online shop IMHO . Just wish they'd carry more Trumpeter stock. Most people run into problems because they don't read the instructions on their page.