GEAR DOWNBuilding the main gear in
position was, I would suggest,
a good idea. I think the chances
of me creating a standalone
assembly of six parts that
stretches quite a way without
any locating aids, and then
expecting it to it into the space
provided at the angle it should
and then survive the rest of the
build are pretty unlikely! As it
was, I found a helpful picture
on the web, put the port side
together as I felt matched the
picture and it looked Ok. I then
itted the closed section of the
gear doors and did the same
on the starboard side. I say
‘itted the gear doors’ like it
just happened. It did not. I had
prepared the door parts before
itting the gear and it was just
as well, there was trimming,
iling, cutting, cursing and
repeat until the parts were
even close to itting. I was
wondering about how I was
going to ill the gaps without
having to completely redo
the underside painting. But
anyway, the main gear was in
place, and so to the nose gear,
a much simpler afair. But...
there’s something wrong here,
I think. Interestingly at no
stage is the nose gear actually
shown being itted; it’s made
in Stages 10-13, but not present
in Stage 25 but it is in 26. And
given the way the gear doors
are supposed to it the part as
provided is incorrect, if there
is a brace on the real thing it
should be behind the leg, not
in front. If you it the part as is
the leg is too far back and you
can’t close the larger of the two
doors. So, I cut of the brace
and the mounting plate and
mounted the leg in the front
hole of the two, from what I can
see from pictures that’s how
it’s supposed to be. I itted the
gear doors and the main wheels
and moved on. Or I would have
done but at this point it became
clear that, even without the
horizontal tails being itted,
this kit is a tail sitter. I should
probably have thought about
that with the chunk of resin at
the back, but I hadn’t, and the
instructions failed to mention
any nose weight. So, where to
put some? I still hadn’t itted
the window in the nose, so I cut
some strips of lead and pushed
them in there so, and despite
trying to get glue in there too,
the kit now rattles, and still
tail sat! So, I popped the nose
gear door back of and illed the
space under there with more
weights and reitted the door.THINGS UNDER
WINGS
Stage 27 was wing pylons, but
I’ve done them, and Stage 28
is making up the payload. You
are supplied with two each
of tanks, rocket pods, gun
pods and air-to-air missiles. I
made up the gun pods and the
tanks but didn’t it them yet.
The instructions then, rather
strangely, go to another Stage
19 (I assume it should have been
29), which its the cover where
the gun has been deleted and
the arrestor hook. The hook is
a rather nice four-part resin
assembly that looks the part
and then Stage 20 (should be
30?) inishes of with the two
ADC probes at the front and the
resin strakes at the rear that
I itted earlier. And that’s all
the build, so time for decals!MARKING TIME
The main markings consist
of six roundels in the usual
positions, two Ukrainian
shields and two stylised
seagulls (I assume) on the tail
and ‘Red 64’ bort numbers each
side of the nose. They went
down without too much drama,
but it was obvious that thesedecals are very (very) thin.
With the stencils I had more
issues, partly again due to the
thinness as many of the smaller
ones folded over to a greater or
lesser extent, and some weren’t
keen on moving if you needed
to adjust them, and some didn’t
want to leave the paper at all.
Oh, and some of the numbers
were wrong, some didn’t exist,
and while they were in some
semblance of order, it doesn’t
help with inding things when
35 is next to 95 is next to 41.
Enough moaning, it looked
nice with the decals applied,
although I have to admit I
didn’t apply them all! Then
it was time for a top coat of
semi-gloss, remove the masks
(which had done a really good
job actually, I wonder who made
them), itting the things under
wings (tanks and gun pod)
and the build was complete.CONCLUSION
It’s not a bad kit, don’t get
me wrong, it is what it is.
A kit requiring modelling
skills, patience and, frankly,
a desire for something a little
diferent and probably some
bigger resin ejector seats,
mine looked a little bit small.SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL • MARCH 20191/
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