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Italeri/Revell/Zvezda 1/72 SU-34, what's wrong with it?


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Salvageable? I guess most decent kits are! It has problems, especially considering it represents the prototype (or maybe pre-production is a better word) stage Su-34. A lot has happened since then and many details differ between the early protos and the current production aircraft.

In order to understand the main trouble areas you'd better start from here:

http://www.lindenhillimports.com/flankers.htm

There are further problems too. The contour of the spine area behind the pit doesn't fully follow the contours of the real thing. Same goes for the cockpit window framing. These just off the top of my head. Someone else might recall more. HTH!

Edited by janman
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About the spine and the window framing. The spine on the real Su-34 slopes down more softly or gently. You can see this pretty easily if you find a good side profile photo of the real thing. Ken's excellent conversion article includes one side view photo of the model.

The rear edge of the side window is almost vertical on the model when viewed from the side. It should lean forward a bit. Easily spotted with a help of suitable photos. Pretty easy to correct as well.

I really like the aircraft in question and since I've already built the Italeri model once (OOB), I'm not into a conversion. The persistent rumours about the new Zvezda model still haven't materialized. But I'm counting on them!

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The Italeri kit looks impressive when first opening the box, but, upon closer inspection, it very much is an Italeri kit of it`s time, basic and flawed.

But as Janman says, and Flankerman proves with his excellent build, it is salvageable. :thumbsup:

Problem I had was that my kit came with no transparency sprue. I contacted Italeri and got (what I now know to be their standard answer) `it is impossible for us to send out a kit with missing parts`.

Hobbico (Italeri`s UK distributor) at least tried to help, but ultimately I got a canopy from a second hand model.

I`ve got all the Italeri kits I want already in my stash, which is fortunate as they`re not getting any more of my money.

Hopefully, a decent, modern kit of the Su-34 will soon be available in 72nd, and from a more trustworthy company.

Cheers, Ian

Edited by Ian Buick
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