guess this goes a couple of feet past
the pitot, so I did some masking
and painting of this area before
assembling the intakes. It would be
very difficult to do this afterwards,
so do not say you are not warned.
Also supplied are what I assume
are auxiliary doors, two per side,
on the inner side of the trunking.
They look like they are designed
to be posable, but as I couldn’t
find any good pictures of what
they should look like, and the
instructions don’t give any clues,
I installed them in the neutral
position. This is a bit of a waste,
as they could add a little interest
if you knew what you should be
looking for (just how much interest
is debatable, I guess, as they are
hidden in the tunnel between the
two intake trunks, and the view
will likely be blocked by ordnance).
As a background task (like when
waiting for glue to dry), I started
on the undercarriage. This looks
very nice, with lots of parts, and
when built up it looks realistic
and rugged - again, though, withthe proviso that adding some
plumbing would lift it to the next
level. I admit that this is difficult to
produce in plastic, and I seriously
considered breaking out some wire,
but decided “Life’s too short”.
I really like the metal inserts
inside the undercarriage legs,
as they should give sufficient
strength (this would have been
a good idea for some of the other
Su-27 variant nose legs). However,
I don’t like that Hobby Boss have
chosen to place the identifying
numbers on these metal parts in
places where they will be visible. It
really wouldn’t have been hard (I
wouldn’t have thought) to put them
on a section that would be covered
by the plastic parts. Instead, I
have something else to clean!
I know people will have views
on the vinyl tyres, but the ones
in this kit look to be very nicely
done (though it does mean there’s
no representation of weighted
wheels). The separate hubs do make
painting very easy, though I didn’t
really see the need for the two hubhalves to have locating pins. For
the main wheels, it certainly makes
things very hard to line up. I just
removed the pins so they didn’t
get in the way. I now painted the
undercarriage, in the previously
mentioned RAF Light Aircraft Grey.
With it ready to roll, it was back
to the tails and control surfaces.
The vertical and horizontal tails
are all two-part assemblies (plus
rudder parts on the vertical tails)
and are nicely engraved, though
most (but not all!) of the pictures
I’ve found of the underside of the
horizontal tails show a bare metal
section. This isn’t represented on
the kit parts (clearly molded on the
Kinetic Su-33), though it’s shown
in the paint instructions. The few
close-ups I’ve seen suggest it IS
a panel in its own right, but, just
to make it more complicated, I’ve
also seen pictures with differing
extents of bare metal, or none at all!
But that’s yet to come, so I
glued the parts together and
sanded the edges down, and
moved onto the control surfaces.Slight moan...there is a place for
moulding the sprue attach points
on the mating surface, and when
used appropriately it’s very useful.
However, it can be misused. For
instance, the rudders are molded
with the attachment on the edge
of the parts, so you cut them off
the sprue and glue them straight
together. Then, when you clean
up the edges the sprue attach gets
cleaned up with them. Great. The
trailing edge flaps, however,
have the attachments on
the mating surface. You cut
them off the sprue, clean
the four attachment points
on the mating surfaces on each
part, glue them together, and
then clean the edges up anyway.
Why? Inappropriate use of the
concept, frankly, and just another
opportunity for me to stab myself
with a scalpel. It’s almost as if
this kit was produced by two
different teams (this will crop up
again later!), only one of which
was composed of modellers.
Anyway, the canopy was now10 • JANUARY 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL
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