1/48 Kinetic Alpha Jet

[ALF18]

Hey folks. I decided to followup on a model I built a few years ago, the Kinetic 1/48 Alpha Jet. This time, I am going to build on what I learned from the last time I built this model, and instead of showing what I did wrong on my first try, I will attempt to describe how to do it right the first time. This is the kit:

I will be doing the DADS (Discovery Air Defence Services) or Top ACES version that comes with the kit. I am building one for a work colleague. He used to work as the maintenance supervisor here in Bagotville for DADS. Now, he is the maintenance supervisor of the Aviation College I work at. I'll call him "S". S gave me some pictures of the real thing to help with the camouflage scheme. Here are a few to inspire me, and hopefully you!

It's not exactly the same aircraft, but the paint scheme is identical. The kit decals are for tail number 40, with a different civil registration.

I like these pictures. They are taken against the local terrain, in winter time. Fun to see an aspect different from parked at an airshow, or flying traffic patterns. This is the kind of view I had of many military aircraft over my 20 years of flying them. I kind of miss this part of that job.

I will pepper more reference shots in later posts, in a shameless play to keep folks interested in this thread.

Buckle up. It should be a fun ride! And above all, I hope I don't screw up this commission build.

ALF

[caudleryan]

Interested? You bet I'm interested! I can't wait to see this one come together!

[skyhawk174]

Looking forward to your build.

I saw this model when Rick at Uncle Bills got a test shot. It looked super in those blues and greys. I recently picked up the kit and it does look like it will be a nice project. I can now donate my ESCI Alpha Jet to a needy family :)

I was recently up at Cold Lake for their air show and they were on display of course. Somehow I really like the green and brown camo ones a little better as compared to this scheme though.

[falcon20driver]

This will be fun to watch. Love those in flight photos.

[phantom]

[Scooby]

Go for it Alfy Baby!

I too saw Rick's test shot build.

[ALF18]

Nice to have all you guys on board. Sorry for the slow start; I have been distracted doing some prep for the coming school year. Sigh. Summer is almost over.

Here is the scheme I will be doing. It is a blue/white/grey air to air scheme that looks rather pretty, as in the pics of the real thing that I posted above. As you can see, the tail number is not the same as in the pics above.

The FS numbers for the paint are listed. I will be looking closely to see what I can use as a match for each colour in this thread.

The box has a few pretty decent reference pics on it. Lots of little details, and the decals are excellent.

Much as I like this Kinetic kit and other ones they have produced lately, I hate the side-opening box. This time, I kept a box from a previous build, to hold all the parts.

Here's my setup. Notice the iPad with the previous build thread on the screen. I will be referring to it constantly, to avoid the little problems I had as I built the first two for my former students. You can find that build thread here. http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=268477&st=0

It was a commission build for two pilot students of mine who both worked as ground crew for Top ACES on the Alpha Jets in Bagotville while they studied at the aviation college where I work.

This kit has multiple options, and lots of tiny parts, so it is necessary to pay very close attention to ensure there is no confusion over which parts to use at each step.

More soon!

ALF

[falcon20driver]

I really like your building area. Looks nice and spacious.

[jester292]

The Alpha Jet, to me, is a lukewarm interest at best. But! This one ha scattered my attention. I'll be staying tuned!

And yes, I also like your workspace!

[Scooby]

I have the same Otter box for my iPad! Very handy case.

[ALF18]

I really like your building area. Looks nice and spacious.

The Alpha Jet, to me, is a lukewarm interest at best. But! This one ha scattered my attention. I'll be staying tuned!

And yes, I also like your workspace!

Glad to have you on board. Not a sexy aircraft, I admit, but a lot of my friends are flying it.

I have the same Otter box for my iPad! Very handy case.

The price was good, anyway. If I were to buy another some day, I would get one with a 3rd choice of display angle. This one works, though.

ALF

Sorry for the long down time. And now, for the how-to stuff.

The kit seats are surprisingly detailed. For my purposes, no AM required, especially when they come with PE belts.

First thing to watch out for: which seat is which. Look carefully at the drawing, and the picture. The rear seat is at left in the photo; it has a slightly smaller set of nubs on the front upper part of the parachute box. The front seat has two pronounced nubs. Make sure you don't mix up the two seat halves, and you don't get the wrong seat in the wrong place. I left off all the PE at this stage, will add it at the end.

Be careful when assembling the central piece here. The two squarish parts that stick out on the vertical piece are locating holes for the main gear and its strut. These two parts must be at the centre and rear of the wheel well, and the wide spread of the engine intake bulges is at the front. If you get it wrong, the gear will not fit and the lower fuselage part will not sit in place either.

Also, be careful of the angle it sits. Make it 90 degrees. Also, I had to trim the vertical piece a tiny bit in length; it fit in too tightly at first, and bent slightly (see the left-hand one here for what I mean).

Cockpit next.

ALF

[ALF18]

The cockpit tub is pretty good for a kit part as well. Here you can see the rear part that will go in place. The location is not entirely clear from the instructions.

This is the lower and rear part of the cockpit tub after they are glued together. In the picture, the rear part is across the top of the photo. Notice how it fits together.

Starting to accumulate some plastic assemblies here.

Now the vertical stabilizer. I am making version A (Canada) for Top ACES. Two things to watch out for:

1. make sure you get the right parts

2. remember to carve out the holes for the antennae on each side of the stabilizer.

These are the little holes to carve out for the antennae. I found I had to gouge a tiny bit more than just the slots you see pre-thinned here.

ALF

[ALF18]

Starting to paint a bit.

The instrument panels are a medium grey background with black instrument dials. I have started to do them up with a black Lumocolor felt pen (fine tipped).

As I said, nice detail for a kit cockpit. A bit more painting to be done.

These are the little antennae that go on either side of the vertical stabilizer. I had to trim down the little tab a bit to make each one fit properly.

The intake trunks fit in nicely. Easy to locate using the pins.

More about how the intakes fit into the fuselage next post.

ALF

[ALF18]

The trunks have little tabs that fit into the fuselage interiors.

Here, the top of the photo is the top of the aircraft. Notice how the intake trunks have to curve up and hug the curve of the upper fuselage area. Make sure you trim off the extra plastic from the sprue connections, because they will not fit properly if the scrap plastic is left in place.

Here are those pins I was talking about. The intake trunk needs to be rotated so the upward curve goes up along the fuselage top.

Properly fit.

Dry fitting. Looking pretty good.

I found that the area around the aiming sight in the front cockpit needed to be chopped down a bit to avoid the fuselage splitting open at the front like you see here.

The back fits beautifully together. With a tiny bit of pressure, the two halves matched nicely.

Still dry-fitting. Notice how the wheel well must sit inside the fuselage. It snugs right up along the intakes, and inside the fuselage. It helps keep the parts spaced properly as the left and right sides of the fuselage are glued together later.

ALF

Edited August 30, 2016 by ALF18

[ALF18]

Here I've buttoned up the fuselage.

The underside. Note how the wheel well sits inside the lips of the fuselage sides. This is important, and very hard to figure out by looking at the instruction drawings.

No need to worry about nose weight for this model. It sits quite solidly on its rear struts, due to the overall design.

For the speedbrakes, I posed them closed. According to my former students (who worked as ground crew on these jets in Bagotville), they are almost always closed on-ground.

Make sure you use this part for it! Do not install the two-part versions; they are intended for open speed brakes, and the fit is poor when you try to close them up.

Make sure you use the "type A" parts for these panels and scoops.

The nose comes together slightly asymmetrically; this is normal. Again, no weight required.

Fit of the nose is nice. This is the top.

Bottom. Note it is slightly misaligned on one side. Don't try to centre this up; use the top and the way it sits as a guide.

The drawing is not clear for how this scoop sits. Here is how it should look.

More soon. Thanks for looking!

ALF

[r0t0rdr1ver]

Great looking build so far ALF! Keep the updates coming. An old friend of mine also works at DADS. I wonder if 'S' is 'S.F.'?

[ALF18]

Great looking build so far ALF! Keep the updates coming. An old friend of mine also works at DADS. I wonder if 'S' is 'S.F.'?

Thanks!

Nope... sent you a PM with his real identity.

More updates. For that fuselage scoop, here is the part. Note how the little locating tab is slanted; the thicker part goes inboard on the fuselage.

Here is where it goes

The open end of the scoop points forward, and some trimming of the soft plastic is needed to get it right

Note the other scoop below it.

Now I installed the intake cowlings. They don't fit perfectly, but a little filler will make it OK. One thing that helps is ensuring you install the cowlings (A3) AFTER you have the fuselage together, and after you have installed the wheel well. The wheel well acts as a spreader, ensuring the lower part of the fuselage in the closer model will stick out and match the rear centre portion of part A3. In this pic, I have NOT done that in the closer model (no wheel well installed), but I HAVE installed the wheel well in the model in the background, where you can see the fuselage to cowling fit is better.

The little tail cone comes with two options. These parts have little bulges. They do NOT apply to the Canadian version.

These are the correct parts

Next up: landing gear.

ALF

Edited August 30, 2016 by ALF18

[AX 365]

Looking good ALF. Great progress and a well written tutorial. I read most of it, except for the last post in the thread, when I used the hyperlink in your thread in the Jet Aircraft sub forum. I'll be checking in to see how you make out.

As I said in N's thread, haven't been on ARC in a while and i9t's time to catch up.

Continued good luck, sire1.

Mike

[falcon20driver]

Great work so far. I appreciate your taking the time to provide tips on the building process. I doubt I'll build this kit but it's nice to know how to approach it if I do.

[ALF18]

Looking good ALF. Great progress and a well written tutorial. I read most of it, except for the last post in the thread, when I used the hyperlink in your thread in the Jet Aircraft sub forum. I'll be checking in to see how you make out.

As I said in N's thread, haven't been on ARC in a while and i9t's time to catch up.

Continued good luck, sire1.

Mike

Great work so far. I appreciate your taking the time to provide tips on the building process. I doubt I'll build this kit but it's nice to know how to approach it if I do.

Nice to have both of you along. Mike, as a retired guy, you have no excuse... except of course when you are busy doing other stuff!

More progress, this time the landing gear. It is relatively well detailed for kit parts. The assembly is not too tricky, but the parts are small and it's easy to snap off part of one. Here is the diagram. Note the place where B12 fits with C16, and how the brace (B14) attaches to both.

First thing I did was chop a bit off the part that fits into the little bracket. If you try to force it in, it may crack and snap off the bracket. Glue these at 90 degrees, and sit them so that you can manoeuvre the cross strut into place without gravity fighting you.

This is the position I used for the two large parts, into which I glued the cross strut without it sagging away due to gravity.

Also, make sure you scrutinize the part numbers carefully, and use them at the right angles. Get it? Right Angles? 90 degrees! I kill me...

At the right is the little bracket that is fragile. The part on the left should be shaved a bit to fit in easily.

Compare the angles to ensure they are identical left and right. This will make it sit straight and not canted to one side.

All for now - time to watch some US Open tennis with SWMBO.

ALF

[phantom]

Wow, does not look like an easy build. Want to do that plane one day.

[falcon20driver]

Just saw one of these parked next to my 50 in San Bernardino. Got a photo for you when I land again. Didn't know if it's the one your building.

Edited August 31, 2016 by falcon20driver

[Colin K]

On 8/10/2016 at 7:50 PM, ALF18 said:

Nice to have all you guys on board. Sorry for the slow start; I have been distracted doing some prep for the coming school year. Sigh. Summer is almost over.

Here is the scheme I will be doing. It is a blue/white/grey air to air scheme that looks rather pretty, as in the pics of the real thing that I posted above. As you can see, the tail number is not the same as in the pics above.

The FS numbers for the paint are listed. I will be looking closely to see what I can use as a match for each colour in this thread.

 

Quote

 

Just thought I would post this here.  I know you asked me about paint colour on my Alpha Jet.  I used Model Master Acrylics French Blue with Light Ghost Grey mixed in.  Depending on the amount of LLG you put in, you should be able to get an almost exact match to the blue.  For the Grey, I used Gunze H306 and gloss white for the white parts.

Edited November 8, 2016 by Colin K

[ALF18]

Thanks Colin. I have started painting, but have several more in-progress pics to post still. I am planning to use white Tamiya primer for the white, and was searching for a grey. I don't have any Gunze paints available here. I looked up on the IPMS Stockholm colour charts, and found a possible match in Tamiya acryl: XF-25. If not, I will use FS36270, which I might have in a jar of modelmaster acryl kicking around. I will look some more for the blue; I have a little bottle of a blue that might work that comes from a store with a bunch of sci-fi figures. When I find the name and colour of that blue I'll let you know. 

 

More progress soon. I have to finish up a PowerPoint presentation for tomorrow's class... sadly, that takes priority over modelling today!

ALF

[ALF18]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! With the implosion of these forums, and real life intrusions, I have been VERY delinquent in finishing this thread. I also have not quite finished the models yet... but soon.

Here is the next progress. Short update for now; I am going to see Rogue One with the family tonight (in this region, there is ONE showing in English, and it's tonight, finally).

I assembled the wings. Fairly straight-forward. Of course, the instructions are strange. Where it says "flaps down" they actually mean flaps up. Maybe the person paid to translate into English looked at the way the wing sat, upside down, and deemed the "flaps up" position to be "flaps down." Fairly obvious, given the absence of bend in the hinges for flaps up.

 

The wings look like this:

 

 

One thing to pay attention to is the alignment of the hinges with the pylons. This drawing is correct.

 

To make sure they're OK, I glued the pylons on at the same time as the hinges. Here, the pylon is backward. There should be absolutely no gap between pylon and hinge.

 

This is what it should look like. Also, be careful to get the inboard and outboard pylons correct, since they are not identical.

 

More tomorrow!

ALF