Jump to content

Aeronavale Super Etendard


Recommended Posts

Hello, Here is a Super Etendard from Heller in 1/72. I got this secondhand SuE kits very cheap from a seller in the UK. I always prepare to cope with old tooling kits which usually  not as easy as modern kits to bring them up to my preference. Care would be taken but sometimes I just let it quick and fun on some stages of building. 

 

Even though kit’s shortcomings, I prefer Heller kit over Academy because it has much more accurate overall shape. Only downside is raised panel lines. I got rid all of them as I thought kit provided engraved lines of flight control surfaces, wheel well doors etc. were enough.  This kit was a  putty monster as expected. Some parts are very fiddle to assemble. To be fair I really like kit’s single piece wing part and horizontal stab part. This gave strength enough to bear rather rough handling and ensured proper wing and horizontal stab angle.

 

There is similar problem to previous old Airfix/ Heller kits built.  In this case, a vertical fin root, molded onto aft upper fuselage, had leading edge angle perpendicular to fuselage skin. Attaching vertical fin, which has swept back leading edge, creates funny looking leading edge root kink due to different angles. The same also happened to horizontal stabilizer… Anyway plastic shim and putty easily remedied this. The kit has none of wheel wells both nose and main gear, just a wall and closed wheel well doors instead. I did not want to bother rebuilding these areas thus I just painted the walls black.

 

Main landing gear struts were shorten by approximately a millimetre to get more correct nose up stance. Heller provide very comprehensive scoops/vents under fuselage but simply molded them solid, no actual hole. Again just black paint. Both pitot probes were too tall and too thick so they ware cut and sanded to proper size. I scratched build probes on both sides of nose and a yellow antenna under nose replacing chunky kit part. These were attached to fuselage with Testors canopy glue. 

 

This model depict a Super Etendard on attack missions over Lebanon in 1983 with SNEB rockets. Matra 155 rocket pods are from Res/kit. The kit provide only one set of drop tank/ pylon and Exocet missile with specific pylon for anti-ship mission.  To get a proper stores loadout I cast another drop tank and pylon in resin as well as both rocket pod’s pylons. Upper color is Mr.Color no.331 dark sea grey with few drops of blue and underside color is no.1 white.  Since kit decals sheet was long gone yellowed, I used markings from Carpena 72.56 which has far more complete stencil, enough for two models. Surprisingly, although the decals appeared flat, they reacted well to Mr. Mark Softer and laid down nicely without silvering contrast to very thick and impervious to setting solution decals on their 1/48 MiG-17 sheet.

 

Thanks  for any comments.
Cheers!

 

ZqY4KBK.jpg

 

vmteO1e.jpg

 

Kp7gEPB.jpg

 

iu4W30n.jpg

 

PD227Gl.jpg

 

1Hhewg9.jpg

 

UC7Smc8.jpg

 

LdILNEe.jpg

 

HUsxhNp.jpg

 

rqUIdvs.jpg

 

Dx8U2jm.jpg

 

SShLYrN.jpg

Edited by Teeradej
Link to post
Share on other sites

 

Teeradej,

Very nicely done model, good looking build and especially the scheme and paint. Your

photos really present the model in an interesting manner. And, I liked what you did with

the "Group Portrait" and showing-off the size comparisons between the aircraft.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Many thanks for kind words.🙂 As my collection grows more I can see that some planes are quite larger or smaller than I thought particularly when put them side by side. 

 

Hajo and Mark, Not less than ten tears ago CAM Decals (and Superscale too) released a sheet contains markings for this f-18. For me it was something different I had never seen before. I have no idea the actual reason why camouflage but I just did not let it pass. 

Link to post
Share on other sites
14 minutes ago, Teeradej said:

Many thanks for kind words.🙂 As my collection grows more I can see that some planes are quite larger or smaller than I thought particularly when put them side by side. 

 

Hajo and Mark, Not less than ten tears ago CAM Decals (and Superscale too) released a sheet contains markings for this f-18. For me it was something different I had never seen before. I have no idea the actual reason why camouflage but I just did not let it pass. 

Maybe was ex-Aggressors plane like some Spanish examples in Desert 'MiG-29 camo

Link to post
Share on other sites

Very nice Super Etendard. You can clearly see the difference between Heller and Academy kits in the down pointing nose.

Of course I'm biased towards the Hornet 😉

Link to post
Share on other sites
17 hours ago, Thadeus said:

Very nice Super Etendard. You can clearly see the difference between Heller and Academy kits in the down pointing nose.

Of course I'm biased towards the Hornet 😉

🤔😂

Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, polar bear said:

สวยมากครับ 

How do you paint the slots on rocket pods?

 

Thanks a lot. They were hand painted simulating frangible covers of the opennings. 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...