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Trumpeter, 1/48th RA-5C?


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I'm in the midst of building one right now, here's what I've found out so far.

Aft fuselage bracing, either buy the Nautilus wood set, or make your own like I did. There's way too much flex in that area to leave it unbraced, I ended up making vertical stiffener plates and put backer strips on the seams to keep the flex down.

No intake trunking, either buy the CE ones or make your own if this bothers you.

Cockpit detail is ok, you won't see a lot of it with the canopies closed

I'm not a big fan of having all the flaps dropped, they can be built in the up position with a little work, down is default.

Rivet detail, I've avoided all the Trumpeter rivet threads in the past, but I'll have to say that the engraved rivets in this kit are too heavy and too numerous. I'm going to fill them in, I may leave a few here and there on various access panels to represent fasteners, but I think the vast majority don't need to be there. Viggies were clean birds and to me, having recessed rivets over the whole bird looks wrong

Other than the above items I noted, it goes together easy, I found the radome fit a shade off and the refueling probe doors to be a bit loose, but that could have been me. Leave yourself plenty of room, it's longer than an F-105G and has a wider wingspan than an F-18 in the same scale.

Ken

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I just was working on mine a few minutes ago. Still in progress needing weathering and canopy attachment. I used the Nautilus bracing along with the Monogram F-15E intakes which fit fairly easily if you cut off the front wooden brace bulkhead and do a little fit and grinding on the Monogram intake trunks. I had a small pile of F-15Es for scraping anyway. I was going to buy the Cutting Edge updates but I had major problems with Meteor screwing up the order :thumbsup: . So I built it low budget without the corrections using just the Aires F-4 burner cans and Eduards interior set. I use both Victory and Zotz decals. The only real problem I found with the kit is the front canopy windscreen just wouldn't fit no matter what and so I had to fair it in with putty after the fact. Big PITA! As you can see below thats not quite done yet and the tail is not yet pushed down all the way either. :cheers:

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Edited by GForceSS
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What's up GforceSS?

Dude...that's bad ***!!! :cheers::thumbsup:

Always a pleasure to see your work anywhere, especially in person. I don't even have this kit, but looking at yours makes me want to pick one up. ;) Thanks for sharing.

:cheers:

Edited by Cyrus Tan
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Thanks much guys. Just wondering about the bracing required, easy to do?

Bill

RA-5C Brace

It very easy to use and this plane really needs more strength behind the cockpit. The spine is thin flat and wide. You could also put some sprue in there to truss it up. If you hold the model a few time you will probably split it open time and again. :doh: It also has the proper sized holders to hold the Aires F-4 cans in place of the kit cans or the OEM can if you wish.

Nautilus did such a good job on the RA-5C brace I just bought one for my FW-200 Condor too.

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