Hobbyboss 1/48 EA-18G Thoughts…

[Modelmkr]

I just had this kit delivered a few days ago so I thought I’d give a few thoughts and comments:

The base aircraft kit itself appears to be quite nice; well moulded, fine details, no real issues. Flory Models did a nice review on the HB F/A-18E that would be comparable to this kit.

The problem arises when you start looking at all the bits you hang on the kit, namely pods and weapons.

 

First up: ALQ-99 pods. They “look” nice on the sprue at first glance but there are several issues here. The prominent heat sink panels on each side of the pods are only represented as smooth raised panels; the pods panel lines are very faint, in the wrong place and completely missing on one of the two halves of the pod. The quite prominent raised fasteners for the radome are represented by tiny and faint recessed rivets. Also, they give you four of the Mid/High band pods but not the fat Low band pod to go on the centreline station. Decals for the pods are included but not complete.

Eduard to the rescue if you want accurate ALQ-99 pods, but for the premium price of this kit and one of the most distinctive features on the Growler, this is a big miss.

 

Second: AGM-88 Harm missiles. Near as I can tell, these look good. Haven’t taken measurements, but they look the part. The issue here is that HB didn’t bother to include the Aero-5/ LAU-118/A launch adapter rails for the missiles and just have you direct mount them on the pylons. Also, the load out map shows you can put them on the intake shoulder mounts too… yeah, don’t do that; not possible. So you’ll have to source some launch rails from either the Hasegawa Weapon sets or you could use the Meng AGM-88s and launch rails from their weapon sets?

 

Third: AIM-120 AMRAAM. Again the missiles look fine, but the instructions have you build launch rails for them that are not needed on the Growler and make no mention of the braces for the intake shoulder launch positions that will be needed to mount these. They are, however, included in the kit (parts E16).

 

Fourth: ALQ-218 wingtip pods. Nice pods, look great, mounted in the wrong spot. Any photo of these will show they protrude forward on the wingtips like horns, but HB have them set up to be mounted centred front to back on the wingtips (sigh…)

 

Last: Extra weapons. Lots and lots for the spare parts box (four sprues worth), BUT… lots of “huh??” going in here. They include 6x GBU-12 bombs but only provide 2 sensor tips for them. This is true for all the HB Super Hornet boxing’s. They include 2x GBU-10 bombs but the bomb body shape looks too fat to my eye. They include 2x GBU-24, but the sensor tip has an oddly exaggerated taper to it that does not look right. And they include 2x refuelling pods whose refuelling basket has no detail on the inside of the cone.

So if you plan to use any of the extra stores for other projects, just beware.

So that’s it. As I said at the beginning, the aircraft kit itself seems to be really nice, just a lot of work and aftermarket/ spares needed to fix up the pods and stores. Again for the money you pay for this, lots of misses. But it is, after all, Hobbyboss ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

 

Enjoy?

[ching kuo]

Can you show us pictures of the kit please .

[drake122]

This has been my experience with HB/Trumpeter as well. In the box, their kits look very nice and the engineering is superb, but when you pay more attention to detail, and you actually care for the subject matter, you quickly realize their research is very shallow and their already expensive kits will require even more aftermarket to make them right. This has been my experience with HB/Trumpeter in the past, and as a result I now only buy their kits if there is no alternative on the market.

[Stephen]

On 11/5/2021 at 4:55 PM, ching kuo said:

Can you show us pictures of the kit please .

https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235064949-148-boeing-fa-18ef-super-hornet-ea-18g-growler-by-hobbyboss-fa-18ef-ea-18g-released/&do=findComment&comment=4203854

[ST0RM]

I remember when the first HB F/A-18C kits were announced as more cost-friendly to the expensive Hasegawa offerings. The HB ended up being higher, once released. And from what I've ever read, not as builder friendly. (Details, fit, etc)

 

So this new kit doesnt surprise me much. 

[Thadeus]

My personal favourite is the fact that HB Growler is the only boxing that features the ACS aft IP. Not the biggest issue in the world. But still, for the bard stack airframe in like 99% of cases You need the ACS aft IP and IP cover.

The D-704 pod is really nice touch. For the SH useless, but still...

However the lack of HARM launchers is just weird. Same with Legacy Hornets. Missiles are there, just not the launchers. Perhaps we should use the TER? I'm glad the mandatory GBU-24 made it.

Overall, in the box, it doesn't seem like a bad kit though. Bonus points for the spine length! On par with Italeri 😉

[Brush]

I am considering this kit to do an RAAF Growler, using Skyart decals. Can someone confirm that the kit has the correct forward fuselage with the gun vents blanked and the additional sensors on the sides just behind the radome. Looking at the sprues on the Hobby Boss website it shows the same nose parts as the E and F. I know it wouldn’t be hard to fill and scratch the sensors (like Italieri) but wouldn’t mind knowing in advance. 
 

cheers

Brush

[Modelmkr]

8 hours ago, Brush said:

I am considering this kit to do an RAAF Growler, using Skyart decals. Can someone confirm that the kit has the correct forward fuselage with the gun vents blanked and the additional sensors on the sides just behind the radome. Looking at the sprues on the Hobby Boss website it shows the same nose parts as the E and F. I know it wouldn’t be hard to fill and scratch the sensors (like Italieri) but wouldn’t mind knowing in advance. 
 

cheers

Brush

All the correct blisters aft of the radome are present on the kit (as seen on Growlers, including Aussie versions), unfortunately so are the gun gas vents. These will need to be blanked/ filled in.

Another strike, Hobbyboss 🙄

[Thadeus]

9 hours ago, Brush said:

I am considering this kit to do an RAAF Growler, using Skyart decals. Can someone confirm that the kit has the correct forward fuselage with the gun vents blanked and the additional sensors on the sides just behind the radome. Looking at the sprues on the Hobby Boss website it shows the same nose parts as the E and F. I know it wouldn’t be hard to fill and scratch the sensors (like Italieri) but wouldn’t mind knowing in advance. 
 

cheers

Brush

 

I suppose You already found this, but here are the HB made pics of the stuff in the box. They are the same as in the britmodeller thread posted earlier.

 

http://hobbyboss.com/index.php?g=home&m=product&a=show&id=1633&l=en

 

Here is the new nose insert with gun nozzle blanked off http://hobbyboss.com/Uploads/202109/61543763299af.jpg

 

The fuselage parts do seem the same however as in the E and F. They are all marked as sprue A. I did not see on the pictures these small bumps just aft of the radome.

They seem to be the only ones that are missing.

 

[Modelmkr]

1 hour ago, Thadeus said:

 

Here is the new nose insert with gun nozzle blanked off http://hobbyboss.com/Uploads/202109/61543763299af.jpg

 

The fuselage parts do seem the same however as in the E and F. They are all marked as sprue A. I did not see on the pictures these small bumps just aft of the radome.

They seem to be the only ones that are missing.

 

I have the HB Growler kit. The small side blisters just aft of the radome are indeed there. As these nose parts (A1 & A2) are the same parts included in the E/F kits, those blisters would need to be removed for the HB E/F kits.

 

The gun gas vents I am referring to that are there on the G (that should not be) are the series of square mesh/vents on the underside of the nose just forward of the nose gear. As you say, the gun muzzle port and side vent part is replaced with a blank part (J7) in the G kit, so that is correct.

[Thadeus]

3 hours ago, Modelmkr said:

I have the HB Growler kit. The small side blisters just aft of the radome are indeed there. As these nose parts (A1 & A2) are the same parts included in the E/F kits, those blisters would need to be removed for the HB E/F kits.

 

The gun gas vents I am referring to that are there on the G (that should not be) are the series of square mesh/vents on the underside of the nose just forward of the nose gear. As you say, the gun muzzle port and side vent part is replaced with a blank part (J7) in the G kit, so that is correct.

 

 

 

Thanks for posting pictures. I stand corrected then. However, on my Echo there are no blisters. Strange.

[Modelmkr]

48 minutes ago, Thadeus said:

 

Thanks for posting pictures. I stand corrected then. However, on my Echo there are no blisters. Strange.

On the HB kit? Huh… that is strange. I guess they made common side nose parts for the F and G then.

[Brush]

Thanks for the heads up. Much appreciated.

[digidigidigi1]

I build it right now...   I have chosen it instead of Meng's one  and in fact I do not regret at all.
The Fit is mostly fine and I can confirm what is written above.
Prepare for some filling/sanding iterations at places with a difficult access.. It's a Hornet so it can't be fully avoided I guess.

Some extra comments:

- Probably the most useful videos so one can prepare for the battle:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmi8XhjEJg0
and this series (it is for Meng but issues are the same...)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oaxk-GTnN7M
 

- Dry fit & add some extra pylons (see attachement) to help with the correct alignment. It will avoid an effort with the fixing of steps between fuselage/wings.
 
If you want to stick to reality a bit more:

- tiny frame adapters to ALQ-218 are missing
http://data3.primeportal.net/hangar/bill_spidle4/ea-18g_166944/images/ea-18g_166944_12_of_48.jpg

- All three ALQ-99s are completely out of shape, replaced with Eduarsd's ones. Position on pylons has to be adapted based on images so some extra drilling to ALQs is required.
Adapters in Eduard are for Prowler...

- HARM-88 replaced with Eduard's ones
Again some drilling into Eduard's adapters.

- Gaps between vertical stabilizers & fuselage are too visible so I had to glue stabilizers and do some filling before the painting.

- If one starts to look at pictures of plane some prominent panel lines are either missing (between rudders & horizontal stabilizers) or at wrong place (flaps) but unless it is a model for competition... 🙂

- The first antenna behind canopy should placed approx 1 cm backwards.
- Do not spend 'too much' time with filling/sanding of seamline in intakes. It won't be seen anyway unless illuminated.

- And the last but not least 🙂
  I repeat what is written above. According to images Growlers do not have all those grilles in front of nose landing gear bay.
  ( but I bet a majority of models built (not just HobbyBoss) has them since all molds derive from FA-18E/F versions)
  I have spotted it 'too late' as well. 🙂

 

 

Edited September 11, 2022 by digidigidigi1