Kitty Hawk 1/48 Gripen A/C

[Salineated Michigander]

...anyone built this kit?  

 

I have it on order.

 

While my exposure to Kitty Hawk products is limited to one singular previous build, it was not an especially enjoyable process so I'm hoping I find some KH redemption on this.  

[Jonathan S]

I think it's one of their early works, so wont be redemption.  The newest kits are certainly much better and there helicopters I hear are pretty good.

[Gary F]

All of my KH Gripens (2xA and 3xB's) had severely warped aft fuselage halves, among other major components, and were unusable, unfixable, and KH never responded to attempts to get replacements.  Hope you have better luck. 

[erik_g]

The KH Gripens are all C and D-models, despite decals for other versions in the boxes.

 

The ones I have are buildable, but they are not going together without putty. There are shape errors, there are no main gear oleo scissor links. The Gripen specific weapons sprue contains one of each RB 15 and BK 90. The former is always carried in pairs, the latter was never used on 39C/D. No external fuel tank, despite the fact that the Gripen almost always carry at least one of them. To include the GBU-12 and Maverick missiles KH took the shortcut and included sprues from a Jaguar or a Mirage that also contains missiles and fuel tanks never carried by any Gripen. On the plus side, the cockpit and seat are nicely detailed.

The decal options that are correct for the version in the box are the CZ, HU, Thai and SA options. The Swedish option in the C kit is for the first series aircraft, which is an A. The Brazilian options in the D boxing is purely fictional. Apparently the real paint scheme for BR is published by SAAB somewhere, but that will be for the 39E, which is a completely different "beast". The demo aircraft also in the D boxing is for the 39-7 prototype aircraft, which is a 39B rebuilt with an F414 engine, larger intakes, new landing gears and so on. Can't be built out of the box anyway.

To put it bluntly, KH get a maximum grade of E for Effort. It can be built into a passable Gripen. But it requires more work than many other kits, some short series kits included.
I am sad to say that this kit will not redeem KH in your eyes. 

The best Gripen kit on the market are the 1/72 Revell offerings. The new ones, not the ones from the 90's.
I would love to see the Gripen in 1/48 from Hasegawa or GWH. There is also the old Italeri kit, but it also needs a lot of putty and the details are poor. Plenty of resin available though.
 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2019 by erik_g

[Red Dog]

what about the old Best choice 1/48 kit?

Hard to find I agree but in case one pops, what about the quality?

[Silver Seraph]

It's the Italeri kit sprinkled with CMK resin detail resin parts. I have it, most of the parts join very nicely but the overall detailing is very limited and the CMK parts are not the best moulded and detailed, no Brassin stuff here.

 

When it comes to accuracy, I really wouldn't know, sorry, just that the Italeri is easier to build and the Kitty Hawk looks more actual if you think detailing.

[Red Dog]

Thank you.

[Auger]

A little late for this, but my impression none the less.

One of their poorest kits.

 

You'll require 4 correction resin aftermarket sets from CMK to make it passable as a replica of operational aircraft.

 

I started an out of box build a few years ago for my local club forums, unfortunately it's no longer online due to the loss of the website we had then.

 

The farther I progressed in the build, the more errors I found with shapes of some of the moulded parts.

Which aggravated an already poorly fitting kit.

 

-landing gear doors are all incorrectly shaped, they do not match the fuselage wells.

 the misshapen doors really can't be used if you want to  model them correctly, as they close once the gear cycle down.

There are a few good Czech airforce videos of patrolling Iceland in 2014-2015 that illustrate the doors cycled closed nicely.

(that was when I was building the kit)

 

-pylons are very bad, incorrect shape, the kit leaves large gaps between them & the wing actuator fairings, when there shouldn't be any.

 (image search Gripen pylons-there are 2 types also)

 

-under-wing actuator fairings are incorrect/undersized, which further emphasizes the pylon gap.

 

-ordnance incomplete or wrong for the aircraft (tossed in ordnance from their Mirage F.1 kit)

 

-no drop tanks (some builders utilized tanks from Hasegawa Draken or aftermarket)

 

-no targeting pod, yet pylon is provided...

 

-exhaust petals 'notch' is reversely moulded compared to the actual aircraft 

 

In addition to the above, my kit had slight mould shift for some parts, along with  warpage & damage due to cramming a 'standard' sized box.

 (at least that is how they promoted their packaging back then - the Jaguar & Mirage F1 were in the same size box I believe.)

 

I worked around the mould shift/misalignment by trimming & aligning parts via the moulded panel lines.

I was able to repair broken pieces & carefully sand out the repair seam.

Warpage required a lot of clamping, which still left a gap near the front under-fuselage area, (shimmed & puttied).

 

Managed to assemble the aircraft components together, but stalled with the gear doors, as they are incorrect shape & size.

So never finished the build.

Moved on to other kits (other manufacturers) with better engineering & quality, some of which were produced decades before the Gripen kit! 

 

If a 1/48 Gripen is a must have for your collection, can only recommend that you pick up the aftermarket correction sets.

Whether it's this kit or the Italeri kit.

 

Most of the builds I've seen online have been OOB, (you'll see the aforementioned gaps).

 The build that used to be featured on the company website appeared to have aftermarket correction sets on it.

Example being, an open exhaust. (not provided in the kit).

A quick search just now, no longer results in a 'company' website, at least for me.

 

HTH & you achieve a better result than I did.