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Looking for some feedback from others who have starting building or have examined the sprues from 1/48 Hobby Boss jet kits mainly F/A-18C and the Tornado kits. Are the Hornet kits on par with Hasegawa and are the Tornado kits better than the Itelari?

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A can of worms has been opened! IMVHO, the F/A-18C probably isn't as good as the Hasegawa kit, so I'd say if you can get the Hasegawa then go with it.

The Tornado will have all sorts of split opinions. Looking at the sprues at the Southern Expo last weekend, I 'd say that although the level of detail in the Hobbyboss kit far surpasses anything else, there are some glaring errors - not least the dreadful tailerons. I have built a couple of Italeri Tornados and have been happy with them and had positive comments at model shows, BUT if you want a 'bells & whistles' model then you will need to buy some aftermarket - a cockpit set at the very least. People will talk about inaccuracies of the Italeri shape, but to me it looks exactly what it is supposed to be. Also of course remember that the Italeri kit is MUCH cheaper to buy than the Hobbyboss.

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I'm glad I asked, I was not aware how inaccurate the Tornado kit from HB is? I just heard it was based off the Itelari mold but was better due to sepereate slats and flaps and the cockpit was better also, guess not.

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The Tornado is bad but fixable.

Some errors are:

Tailerons wrong shape

Wing fillets around the Kruger flap area way too thick

Intakes sit too high

nose profile forward of intake wrong

Canopy framing missing resulting in it being too shallow

Pilots IP sits too high

Reverse thrust buckets can only be buile deployed without surgery

And,wrong weapons & stores fit for all the varients.(ie-German jets carrying ALARM,Twin AIM 9L rails on inner pylon,no Skyshadow pod for RAF ect)

Check out Jonners build below,this is waht he had to do to correct the errors in the kit.I'm going to build one but graft the nose section from an old Italeria kit onto the HB one.

Jonners Tornado GR4 build

Edited by spike7451
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Reverse thrust buckets can only be buile deployed without surgery

And I always wanted to try to build a Tornado with the thrust reverse deployed!

Anyone know of an am set for 1/72 scale?

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I've only purchased on HB kits and it's the 1/48 F-18A. I know about the shape issues of the intakes but I'm not sure of much else. I haven't read any reviews and mine is still shrink wrapped. I can't make any informed comments on shape or accuracy.

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The Tornado is bad but fixable.

Some errors are:

Tailerons wrong shape

Wing fillets around the Kruger flap area way too thick

Intakes sit too high

nose profile forward of intake wrong

Canopy framing missing resulting in it being too shallow

Pilots IP sits too high

Reverse thrust buckets can only be buile deployed without surgery

And,wrong weapons & stores fit for all the varients.(ie-German jets carrying ALARM,Twin AIM 9L rails on inner pylon,no Skyshadow pod for RAF ect)

With a list like that, I'll definitely stick with the Italeri!

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I'm glad I asked, I was not aware how inaccurate the Tornado kit from HB is? I just heard it was based off the Itelari mold but was better due to sepereate slats and flaps and the cockpit was better also, guess not.

Why does everyone assume that every new kit from China is a copy of a kit from somewhere else?

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Why does everyone assume that every new kit from China is a copy of a kit from somewhere else?

Well,bit's of the Tornado kit look like they are copy's of the Italeria kit however going by the mistakes ect,if they were a 100% copy,the'd be less inaccuracies than the are.The are enough Tornado's & pics/data out there for reference that the problems with the kit today should'nt exist.

Sloppy work on the part of HB but hey,it means that correction sets are/will be produced by 2mikes ect.........

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Just my humble opinion, HB F/A-18 seems very very good for me, cheaper than Hasegawa´s ones and with a lot of ordinance.....for the Tornado, I´ll stick to my Italeri´s ones, in fact, I´ve only bought Italeri Tornados, once they´re built, they seem like Tornados, HB ones have a lot of shape issues and they´re more expensive.....

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I've got two HB kits....the FJ-4 and F/A-18C.

Aside from the cockpit being a bit too shallow in the Hornet, I think it's a fine kit....really impressed with the Fury. Looks like a nice fun build without a lot of glaring problems.

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Just my humble opinion, HB F/A-18 seems very very good for me, cheaper than Hasegawa´s ones and with a lot of ordinance.....for the Tornado, I´ll stick to my Italeri´s ones, in fact, I´ve only bought Italeri Tornados, once they´re built, they seem like Tornados, HB ones have a lot of shape issues and they´re more expensive.....

Do you have a HB Tornado?

The 1/48 Italeri tornado is almost a scale-up of the 1/72 one.

With the same details scaled-up, almost the same parts scaled-up.

And if it is "acceptable" in 1/72, I'm sorry but the 1/48 replication stays a Italeri 80-90s' standard kit.

One thing I know is, the second I opened the HB tornado box, I forgot the italeri one in the stash.

Perhaps it will be used as weapons donor, or spare for the painting.

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Why does everyone assume that every new kit from China is a copy of a kit from somewhere else?

Because most of them are.........

and bad ones at that.

Curt

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Because most of them are.........

and bad ones at that.

Curt

IE,The Zhengdufu (or something like that....) EF-111 Raven in 1/48 is a poor copy of the poor old Academy kit.I'm building it at the moment.

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