Mig-31 Foxhound

[YKM]

The AMK nose is a bit off, being a bit too thick and heavy overall.

 

The raised portion of the canopy/spine line isn't and the canopies themselves are too rounded.

 

You see it or you don't...

 

 

 

http://www.britmodeller.com/reviews/staff/mike/mig-31/mig-31bm-10.jpg

 

To me, the HB captures this area more elegantly, even accounting for the Amigo radome fix.

 

Both jets miss the characteristic, nose high, squat of the real jet but, without modification to its metal insert MLG, the HB Sokol sits just ridiculously too high on it's gear, like a ballerina doing pirouettes.  The MiG-31 does have a reasonably tall stance _when empty_, because it has to clear the loading of the R-33 to the belly stations.  But nothing like the HB.

 

A big problem for both kits is that the R-37M VLRAAM entered service in 2016-2018 and is currently the primary BVR weapon in Ukraine with the world's longest ranging kill at 217km/117nm.  It looks nothing like the preceding, Cold War era, R-33 included as primary armament in both kits.  If you want to model a contemporary Foxhound (or Su-35 or Su-57) there is no option for that as the HB MiG-31M (One Off, never entered service) is the only kit with a reasonable rendering of the missile and even that is the original AA-13A Arrow, not the third of a meter shorter AA-13B Axehead.  Looking at 84+84 dollars for /weapons sprues/ is just...annoying.  Because the MiG-31M is literally only suitable for building as the prototype.

 

And then there is the 20 dollar HAD theater decals and the 23 dollar Quinta Studios cockpit set.  And the 22 dollar Katran Exhausts.  And the 15 dollar metal gear addon for the AMK.  And the 11 dollar Brassin wheels for the HB.  The AMK kit itself is now 100+ dollars in the 'upgrade' release with some pretty bluff 3DP details.

 

The more that is charged for a baseline kit, the more effort is needed to get it right, first time, and keep it up to date.

 

For all their clever engineering, both HB and AMK have effectively priced themselves out of market entry with a 168+91 dollar, baseline kit + correction set, improvement setup.  Just issuing a proper R-37M would go some ways towards fixing this.  But only partway.