giacomo Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 My willingness to get some new kit is too strong, but I have ten unbuilt aircrafts in the stash, so it's time to give it a go. I bought Revell's 1/72 Super Hornet a kit when it was issued a couple of years ago. When I saw the postman coming with that big box from Hong Kong's Lucky Model containing this very model and Revell's F-22 I was soooooooooooooo excited, but my expression suddenly changed when he told me I had to pay a €10 custom tax in order to get the package. Lesson learned: NEVER get big things from extra-EU countries if you live in Italy as the risk of being taxed is very high :_| Anyway, today I started cutting the parts from the sprue. There are not many parts, it will be an OOB build and I hope to finish this model in a reasonable time as I have three aircrafts waiting to be finished since 2010. The kit is substantially a scaling down of the German firm's 1/48 product and as you may have read it shares it's bigger brother's same accuracy issues. I've never built the Hasegawa model, but I've read a review comparing it with the Revell offering on modellingmadness.com which you can read here http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/mod/previews/revell/04298.htm To sum it up: * The Hasegawa models are more accurate in terms of shape but don't have ordnance and the cockpit is totally bare. * On the contrary, Revell offers a detailed cockpit and more ordnance despite some shape and accuracy issues inherited from its 1/48 brother. Nevertheless, it looks like a Super Hornet. As for the cockpit, the detail is quite good and decals for the instrument panels are provided, and the ejection seat - made of three parts - has harnesses moulded on. Also the control stick looks nice. As for the fuselage, the panel lines and rivets are nice, although not as crisp as other productions. The decal sheet is a Cartograf one and is very big and nice, allowing one to depict the old VFA-137 CAG bird and a VFA-105 aircraft in low visibility livery, which will be my marking choice. The decals are matt and the film is quite visible, we'll se how they behave once applied. My only worry is that I already have a bad experience with this kind of decals which didn't resist the Mr. Mark Softer treatment. Today I started cutting the parts from the sprues and dry-fitted the main components. They fit quite well, especially the two main fuselage halves. Care must be taken when aligning the four parts of the nose area, but everything should look ok when glued. A bit of Mr. Surfacer will be helpful to belnd it all. As for the rest, it looks very promising. I'll let the images speak in my place! PS. I knew the Super Hornet was a big beast, but not so big! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
zkalos Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 The bigest problem with Revell, that the nose and the fuse sides in the line of vertical stabilisators wrong-shaped. The nose is not elliptical, but square-shaped in the upper side front of the windscreen. A bulge on the side of the fuselage is shown, when in the real jet shown the color-change. It seems to me that Revell's engineers the color changes of location saw refractions, and the shape brake in the line of color-change. Hasegawa is perfect in form and dimension. The MLG too big for me, NLG wheel arcs wrong shaped, and made too soft plastic. The 1/48 version from revell are no such formal errors. Sorry for bad english. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pollie Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 The decal sheet is a Cartograf one Well, they don't behave like the Cartograf decals I have, are not marked as being printed by Cartograf, and don't have the typical shine of Cartograf decals. In other words, I doubt your observation..... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Inquisitor Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 (edited) The decals aren't cartograph. And the biggest flaw of the revell kit is the shape of the spine. Overall they made it with a semicircular cross-section, whereas starting behind the canopy to 1/3 of the length should more of a rectangular cross-section as well as more volume to it. There's a article at Hyperscale explaining in detail all the shortcomings of the Revell 1/48 kit and how to fix them, which applies to this kit too since it's basically a downscale. The part about the spine is near the bottom. http://hsfeatures.com/features04/fa18ejc_1.htm Edited August 28, 2011 by Inquisitor Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ChernayaAkula Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 The product number on the decal sheet ends on a C, which in Revell parlance signifies Cartograf decals. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Inquisitor Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Umm, if it's indeed printed by Cartograph then it's not to their usual standards. The decal included in the F/A-18E has a matt finish and has a lot more excess carrier film compared to all the other cartograph decals I have from other kits. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ST0RM Posted August 30, 2011 Share Posted August 30, 2011 I've got this kit, but never went through the details. Your photos show several flaws and design/engineering problems. Surprised that they are from Revell AG. At least it wasnt too expensive. But yes, zkalos' comments are pretty dead on. Hasegawa's kit, dispite lacking any cockpit detail and shallow wheel wells, is still the best in 1/72. -Jeff Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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