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Kinetic 1:48 F-16 and F/A-18


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I am building both the Hasegawa and Kinetic Hornets and Hasegawa's is much nicer. The fit is pretty much perfect. Kinetic's is over engineered and fits poorly,  particularly around the nose and intakes. There are also shape and dimensional differences between the two. Kinetic's cockpit coaming is noticeably longer than Hasegawa's and the speed brake is also wider. Hasegawa provides better detailing in the main gear wells. The strong point of the Kinetic kit is that the cockpit is overall better but both have disappointing ejection seats. For doing a Blue Angels jet, out of the box Hasegawa's is better. A separate part is included for the blanked off gun opening and the line for the smoke system is also provided. That's my opinion. 

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2 hours ago, Chriss7607 said:

I am building both the Hasegawa and Kinetic Hornets and Hasegawa's is much nicer. The fit is pretty much perfect. Kinetic's is over engineered and fits poorly,  particularly around the nose and intakes. There are also shape and dimensional differences between the two. Kinetic's cockpit coaming is noticeably longer than Hasegawa's and the speed brake is also wider. Hasegawa provides better detailing in the main gear wells. The strong point of the Kinetic kit is that the cockpit is overall better but both have disappointing ejection seats. For doing a Blue Angels jet, out of the box Hasegawa's is better. A separate part is included for the blanked off gun opening and the line for the smoke system is also provided. That's my opinion. 

 

I’ve done two Kinetic Hornets and agree with all above.   They look like Hornets when they’re done, but the Hasegawa kits just look a touch  better and less finicky to build. 

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Well the nose area is a little bit tricky but it is because we offer a lot of option Hasegawa does not offer. The hasegawa kit cannot represents a late C with different Louvre on the bottom.

 

 

The hasegawa nose also requies some skill to align. 

 

 

As for the shape the hasegawa spine and vertical tail is off. But many people ‘believe’ they are more accurate. 

 

At last the detail on the MLG has more detail than the hasegawa, not to mention the full intake truck and optional fold wing. 

 

In view of the option provided different customer has different preference. 

Edited by Raymond Chung
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I have to agree with Chris 7607 on this. The cockpit coaming on the Kinetic kit is way to long as is the dimensionall erros on the speed brake. The nose is a real bad girl to build...check out Doogs models build. He gives a great build sequence for it. The vertical stabs on both kits are identical. There're alot of great options with the kit, and it does look like a Hornet when done but for ease of build and a more accurate shape I'd stick with Hasegawa.

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6 hours ago, Gunfighter 124 said:

Hey Raymond,

Quick question if you don't mind, how was the Kinetic F/A-18 Hornet developed?  Curious to know, thanks!

 

Sorry for the thread being hijacked.

 

We develope the kit with the support and reference from Cold Lake air base. 

 

During the development we discovered the spine on Monogram Hornet match the cross section profile from McDonald Douglas blue print also the the vertical tail of hasegawa is longer in 2mm in 1/48 scale.

 

but as I said hasegawa hornet has been recognised as the standard for years, so most of the consumer will compare it and think they are accurate. In fact it is not. 

 

About assembly fit I think most people overlook our one pc lower hull. As we evaluate, one of trouble in hasegawa hornet is to assembly the intake left right sidee wall some alignment error between intake lips side wall would need some putty work and sanding. While we offer one pc hull to hold the structure to easy the core frame construction. 

 

Anyway it is up to individual to take whatever best for them. 

Edited by Raymond Chung
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1 hour ago, racerman said:

I have to agree with Chris 7607 on this. The cockpit coaming on the Kinetic kit is way to long as is the dimensionall erros on the speed brake. The nose is a real bad girl to build...check out Doogs models build. He gives a great build sequence for it. The vertical stabs on both kits are identical. There're alot of great options with the kit, and it does look like a Hornet when done but for ease of build and a more accurate shape I'd stick with Hasegawa.

 

The hasegawa vertical tail is longer by 2mm than Kinetic and it has been proofed corrected by Dave Roof with his measurement.

 

but anyway that is individual personal choice, if anyone prefer the hasegawa then keep it that way, I just want to stay a more complete comparsion between two kits. 

 

As for the nose installation since we have optional Louvre, IFR probe the assembly would be more parts to aligned. Therefor if those ‘accuracy’ in the detail is not your concern, the hasegawa 2 pc nose would be easier to align then 5 pcs of Kinetic. 

Edited by Raymond Chung
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Sorry Raymond, I love your recent kits, but here the Hasegawa still wins for me, because of the better shaped canopy.

 

The canopy cross section on the Kinetic kit is omega shaped no doubt, but it's a bit less pronounced as it should be unfortunately. Despite the fact that the wind shield will still need to be push wide about 1mm in the photo here, the frame is still close to U shaped. Hasegawa looks much better:

2.jpg.5a4e8d90e730d7375597240fca2dc38f.jpg

 

On the main canopy it's much less pronounced, but still noticeable to me. There is also other small issue with the wind shield which should be fixable. I'd love to have full length intake and more correct spine, but the canopy is always very important to me and that break the deal for me. It's noticeable from many angles, directly frontal for example(again kit on the left):

 

3.png

Edited by delide
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Dear Delide,

 

Yes, I know what you mean. Unluckily, the old tooling shop who tool the windshield does not follow the CAD file, they short cut the canopy in the pre-production copy. We revised it before the 1st production run. However, the omega shape does not prononuced enough also the during modification, it makes the canopy part ticker than the original CAD parameter.

 

That is the one of the reason we totally leave the old factory back in 2016. And now, we are looking for a chance to fix the windshield somedays. (the pictures you show is the windshield from the test shot build up, the production copy has been modified, the oemga shape is wider.

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Raymond Chung said:

Dear Delide,

 

Yes, I know what you mean. Unluckily, the old tooling shop who tool the windshield does not follow the CAD file, they short cut the canopy in the pre-production copy. We revised it before the 1st production run. However, the omega shape does not prononuced enough also the during modification, it makes the canopy part ticker than the original CAD parameter.

 

That is the one of the reason we totally leave the old factory back in 2016. And now, we are looking for a chance to fix the windshield somedays. (the pictures you show is the windshield from the test shot build up, the production copy has been modified, the oemga shape is wider.

 

 

Hi Raymond,

Wow, thanks for the quick response and the information(isn't it passed midnight in Hongkong?). Hmmm, now I'm undecided, it will need to spent more time to have a closer look, just saw a build up of the newer CF-188B, which looks much better indeed. If you find a chance to further improve it, do find a way to let us know too :-)

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I am in the process of building the Kinetic Hornet right now and yes, the nose IS tricky, and so are the intakes. It is not a drop fit. But with some care and force applied to the right spots it goes together quite well, with little or no filler required.
As already mentioned, the cockpit is quite nice out of the box. The seat is ok - seen worse, seen better, but I have a Quick Boost seat that will spice up things a notch.
The weapon sprues from the old F-16 kits are not in the same class as the rest of the kits unfortunately, but then again, there aren´t many weapons in the Hasegawa box either. I´ll use a pair of Brassin bombs and a Brassin Litening on mine (BTW the instructions tells you there is a litening pod in the box, but I could not find any in mine). I bought the first boxing, and the tips of the fins are apparently slightly off in shape, that is corrected on later boxings AFAIK. On the up side, there are several nice decal options in the box, of which I am building one of the blandest, the finnish one.
A lot of Hornet in my life right now as I am also learning how to fly and fight the Hornet in DCS 🙂

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I'm also building the Kinetic Hornet kit right now. Some things in the kit are nice and have been mentioned above. I ended up cutting the nose section from the top of the fuselage and attached it to the nose section and then mated the two parts together, this did help in the fit of the parts a little better from what others had described; however, an issue that I've run into is with the IP coaming and the fit of the front windscreen. I have a massive step where the windscreen meets the nose, I think I'm going to have to do some sanding and filling to blend them together. As others have said, the intakes are tricky and I think I'm going to make F.O.D. covers for them to cover them up. For the seat I used an aftermarket one from Aries i believe, and it looks much better. I've not built the Hasegawa kit, but I think, if I were to build another Hornet, Hasegawa would be my choice.

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On 9/14/2018 at 12:48 PM, delide said:

Hi Raymond,

Wow, thanks for the quick response and the information(isn't it passed midnight in Hongkong?).

 

This is something I need to point out to everyone. Mr. Chung is heavily invested in customer service and keeping modellers happy. To relate to what I just said, back in 2007 I had a problem with an order from Lucky Model. I was pissed off about something (that I no longer recall) and posted about it online. Raymond called me at home to talk about it and make things right. It was afternoon here in Wisconsin and he had gotten out of bed at 4:30 AM to call me. I have never had another vendor do this before or after. I will always remember that phone call.

 

 

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I have dealt with Raymond a few times concerning issues and he has always been a stand-up guy. He is creating a first rate business for us and I will always support that. His kits continue to improve and he listens to us which very few companies do. Also he keeps bringing out topics no one else will do (E-2C Hawkeye) and I really like that.

 

Dave

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On 9/13/2018 at 9:12 AM, Chriss7607 said:

I am building both the Hasegawa and Kinetic Hornets and Hasegawa's is much nicer. The fit is pretty much perfect. Kinetic's is over engineered and fits poorly,  particularly around the nose and intakes. There are also shape and dimensional differences between the two. Kinetic's cockpit coaming is noticeably longer than Hasegawa's and the speed brake is also wider. Hasegawa provides better detailing in the main gear wells. The strong point of the Kinetic kit is that the cockpit is overall better but both have disappointing ejection seats. For doing a Blue Angels jet, out of the box Hasegawa's is better. A separate part is included for the blanked off gun opening and the line for the smoke system is also provided. That's my opinion. 

 How do you know that the with of the Hasegawa's  speed brake  is correct ?

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