Teeradej Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 (edited) 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! Edited May 15, 2020 by Teeradej Quote Link to post Share on other sites
The Underdog Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 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. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Lost_Erik Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 Stellar build!👍 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hajo L. Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 Very nice! Sorry to divert a little bit, but what´s the story about the grey-grey-camoflaged F-18? HAJO Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Mark Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 A great addition to the collection, nicely done! I'm also curious about the camo F-18...? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
kurnass77 Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 Always loved the Sue and your is a fine example! Gianni Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Teeradej Posted May 15, 2020 Author Share Posted May 15, 2020 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. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
kurnass77 Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 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 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Thadeus Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 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 😉 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Teeradej Posted May 17, 2020 Author Share Posted May 17, 2020 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 😉 🤔😂 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
polar bear Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 สวยมากครับ How do you paint the slots on rocket pods? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Teeradej Posted May 18, 2020 Author Share Posted May 18, 2020 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. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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