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Best fitting legacy hornet in 1/48?


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2 hours ago, Scooby said:

Hasegawa is far easier to build and is much better dimensionally. Having worked on Hornets, whenever I see a Kinetic Hornet the first thing that catches my eye is the rounded spine. Looks so weird. 

Having built both, my opinion is that Hasegawa and Kinetic are similar in ease/difficulty of assembly, although areas of difficulty may not be the same. I have just looked at my Hasegawa and Kinetic builds side by side and am hard pressed to discern any significant (to me) difference in the curvature of the spines. Perhaps you could explain further?

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I tend to judge kits based on build-ability, not just fit.   I'm on my 3rd Hasegawa legacy hornet build right now and I'm running out of nostalgia for this kit. The Hasegawa tooling is definitely showing it's age.

 

Hasegawa Problem areas and missing/incorrect details:

Avionics door hinges are step molded instead of a real piano hinge panel line

Nearly non-existent panel lines on the fuselage sides under the LEX.

The fit of the lower fuselage into the upper LEX areas is a hot mess.

Top of nose in front of canopy has faint panel lines with seam running down the middle of it.

Terrible fit of gun port, needs reshaping and rescribing of the difficult contours

Windscreen fit is terrible (some kits are too narrow, some too wide, clearly a molding process issue)

Poor fit with the spine filler panel

Most releases only have single chaff bucket parts

No option for IFF blades

Lower gun pallet panel has poorly molded early vent type, no option for the later screened vents.

No swept RF antennas, only short straight type

AOA sensors are the early vane type, doesn't have option for probe style.

Speed brake fits terribly when closed

Rear fuselage side panels fit funky, weird seam locations right on top of formation lights.

Vertical stab reinforcement brackets are for early A model

Sink marks on tops of wings where the PS is injected into the mold.

Intake trunks are less than an inch deep. Panel lines around intake lip and down fuselage sides don't match well with real thing.

Overall, most panel lines are very shallow and don't take pin washes well

Optional starboard nose gear door with ECM antenna is molded backwards

 

The Hasegawa shape is superb, but it's really just an A/B kit with a few C/D parts thrown in to cover the major differences.  Since Hasegawa invested $0 in slide molding technology, 30-40% of the panel lines need re-scribing work done to them.

I've never built a Kinetic Hornet, but I have two in the stash.  What struck me as amazing was the lower fuselage of the Kinetic kit.  The sides are all slide molded, avoiding the worst short comings of the Hasegawa kit.  It also does a slightly better job of offering the C/D unique parts in the box (including the recon pallet for the D gold release).  For myself, these features rank the Kinetic kit pretty high as far as build-ability.

 

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Useful and helpful list of items, sigtau. I have one question: you mention the vertical stab reinforcement brackets. Kinetic provides photo-etch pieces for the reinforcing strips that appear to be the same in both their F/A-18C and CF-188A kits. Should there be a difference, or are you referring to something else?

Thanks! Pip

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10 hours ago, sigtau said:

I tend to judge kits based on build-ability, not just fit.   I'm on my 3rd Hasegawa legacy hornet build right now and I'm running out of nostalgia for this kit. The Hasegawa tooling is definitely showing it's age.

 

Hasegawa Problem areas and missing/incorrect details:

Avionics door hinges are step molded instead of a real piano hinge panel line

Nearly non-existent panel lines on the fuselage sides under the LEX.

The fit of the lower fuselage into the upper LEX areas is a hot mess.

Top of nose in front of canopy has faint panel lines with seam running down the middle of it.

Terrible fit of gun port, needs reshaping and rescribing of the difficult contours

Windscreen fit is terrible (some kits are too narrow, some too wide, clearly a molding process issue)

Poor fit with the spine filler panel

Most releases only have single chaff bucket parts

No option for IFF blades

Lower gun pallet panel has poorly molded early vent type, no option for the later screened vents.

No swept RF antennas, only short straight type

AOA sensors are the early vane type, doesn't have option for probe style.

Speed brake fits terribly when closed

Rear fuselage side panels fit funky, weird seam locations right on top of formation lights.

Vertical stab reinforcement brackets are for early A model

Sink marks on tops of wings where the PS is injected into the mold.

Intake trunks are less than an inch deep. Panel lines around intake lip and down fuselage sides don't match well with real thing.

Overall, most panel lines are very shallow and don't take pin washes well

Optional starboard nose gear door with ECM antenna is molded backwards

 

The Hasegawa shape is superb, but it's really just an A/B kit with a few C/D parts thrown in to cover the major differences.  Since Hasegawa invested $0 in slide molding technology, 30-40% of the panel lines need re-scribing work done to them.

I've never built a Kinetic Hornet, but I have two in the stash.  What struck me as amazing was the lower fuselage of the Kinetic kit.  The sides are all slide molded, avoiding the worst short comings of the Hasegawa kit.  It also does a slightly better job of offering the C/D unique parts in the box (including the recon pallet for the D gold release).  For myself, these features rank the Kinetic kit pretty high as far as build-ability.

 

 

 

While I understand most of your points, a couple things you need to consider. The Hasegawa kit was first released in 1991, over 30 years ago. If my memory is correct, the use of slide mold technology wasn't being widely used.

 

Many of the options/features you note weren't even on the real aircraft when the kit was released, so you can't really fault Hasegawa for not including what didn't exist at the time. In a few later releases, they did include a sprue with the dual buckets, IFF antenna and larger, swept back UHF/VHF antenna. 

 

Regarding the fit issues, I've built five Hasegawa Hornets and never had a problem with the windscreen. The other issues can be resolved with a little tweaking. The Kinetic kit has just as many fit issues, but in different areas. The main wheel bay leaves huge gaps because of the way it was designed and the nose requires a lot of work in order for it to fit correctly. Of the two I've built, both were a struggle and slightly more difficult than the Hasegawa kit. 

 

With Hasegawa, you can easily build an early Hornet, but have to add/remove stuff to get a late Hornet. With Kinetic, you can easily build a late Hornet, but have to add/remove stuff to get an early Hornet. 

 

The Kinetic kit, while superior in surface details and crispness of some parts, really isn't that much better when 'everything' is considered. As it's already been noted, the Hasegawa kit is also more accurate with regard to shape and is more proportionately correct than Kinetic's. Having actually measured a Hornet with a tape measure, laser level and plumb line, taking over 3000 photos of it and having in my possession almost all of the technical support manuals for the aircraft, I am 100% confident in that assessment.  

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11 hours ago, Dave Roof said:

Regarding the fit issues, I've built five Hasegawa Hornets and never had a problem with the windscreen. The other issues can be resolved with a little tweaking. The Kinetic kit has just as many fit issues, but in different areas. The main wheel bay leaves huge gaps because of the way it was designed and the nose requires a lot of work in order for it to fit correctly. Of the two I've built, both were a struggle and slightly more difficult than the Hasegawa kit.

I just finished a Kinetic CF-188 and am looking at the main wheel bay. I don't see any gaps at all (?). The nose required a small amount of work and a couple of dabs of putty. To be fair, I don't know if Kinetic modified those parts at some point after the initial F/A-18C boxing. I've got another -C in the stash which I plan to build as a -D using the optional parts provided in the CF-188 kit. Guess I'll find out then whether or not they did.

 

By the way, Dave, I purchased and used one of your 3D-printed HUDs -- beautifully done!

 

Cheers, Pip

Edited by seawinder
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Hasegawa has used slide molds for decades - but only on "bubble" canopies e.g. F-14/15/16/18 & Su-27. If your canopy has a mold seam on the outer surface, front to back, it was molded with a multi-part (slide) mold. 

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10 minutes ago, habu2 said:

Hasegawa has used slide molds for decades - but only on "bubble" canopies e.g. F-14/15/16/18 & Su-27. If your canopy has a mold seam on the outer surface, front to back, it was molded with a multi-part (slide) mold. 

 

True and I should have clarified what I was referring to when I said it wasn't being widely used. While they were using it for canopies, it wasn't being done for stuff like larger fuselage sections or single piece parts, like the lower fuselage of the Kinetic Hornet, tail boom of the Academy AH-1Z, forward fuselage of the AMK Tomcat, etc. 

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12 hours ago, Dave Roof said:

 

 

While I understand most of your points, a couple things you need to consider. The Hasegawa kit was first released in 1991, over 30 years ago. If my memory is correct, the use of slide mold technology wasn't being widely used.

As already mentioned in the other replies, Hasegawa has used slide molding on canopies since the 80's.  I should have clarified I was referring to fuselage components.  

12 hours ago, Dave Roof said:

 

Many of the options/features you note weren't even on the real aircraft when the kit was released, so you can't really fault Hasegawa for not including what didn't exist at the time. In a few later releases, they did include a sprue with the dual buckets, IFF antenna and larger, swept back UHF/VHF antenna. 

True, but they continue to repop the same tired molds that are in desperate need of updating.  As for those optional parts, they only include them in certain releases.  I recently bought a D model kit new from Sprue Bros and it's not included in that version.  Reminds me of their really tired F-14 series.  Some kits include the upgraded parts, some don't.

 

 

12 hours ago, Dave Roof said:

 

Regarding the fit issues, I've built five Hasegawa Hornets and never had a problem with the windscreen. The other issues can be resolved with a little tweaking. The Kinetic kit has just as many fit issues, but in different areas. The main wheel bay leaves huge gaps because of the way it was designed and the nose requires a lot of work in order for it to fit correctly. Of the two I've built, both were a struggle and slightly more difficult than the Hasegawa kit. 

I've had really bad luck with clear parts from Hasegawa F-14s and F-18s.  I've seen many mal-formed clear parts, but mostly on the F-14 series.  This was the first time I had an issue with an F-18.  My current F-18 build was from parts out of a 1999 special edition kit.  The windscreen was about 1 mm too narrow at the rear.  I checked it against a windscreen from another kit and that part was 1 mm too wide.   I opted to go with the narrow one and went to work shimming and blending it in.

 

I just mocked up one of my Kinetic kits and the nose is a geometric hot mess.  I found once I properly located the nose relative to the nose gear bay, everything dry fits well.  But I could totally see it all getting out of whack if you don't get it just right.

 

12 hours ago, Dave Roof said:

 

With Hasegawa, you can easily build an early Hornet, but have to add/remove stuff to get a late Hornet. With Kinetic, you can easily build a late Hornet, but have to add/remove stuff to get an early Hornet. 

 

The Kinetic kit, while superior in surface details and crispness of some parts, really isn't that much better when 'everything' is considered. As it's already been noted, the Hasegawa kit is also more accurate with regard to shape and is more proportionately correct than Kinetic's. Having actually measured a Hornet with a tape measure, laser level and plumb line, taking over 3000 photos of it and having in my possession almost all of the technical support manuals for the aircraft, I am 100% confident in that assessment.  

 

The Hasegawa kit is obviously captures the shape, contours, and details of the F-18 quite well.  And no doubt you've probably spent more time around F-18s than anyone else in this group, so it's not my place to debate shape accuracy. 

 

 

 

 

 

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