Scale aviation modeller international

pods. Some strong decal solvent

resulted in damage which I had to

retouch with several thin coats of

white paint brushed on carefully.

The national insignia on the

fuselage sides, just under the cockpit,

were also slightly disappointing. The

partial white border is printed well

enough but the red of the insignia

proved to be slightly transparent and

showed the demarcation between

the white and blue paint underneath.

You may wish to cut a small circle

from white decal to add underneath

to avoid it happening on your model.

FINISHING

Once the decals were dry I added

the undercarriage, aerials and

tailplanes and retouched any areas

of blue. The fin is a case in point as

the decal has cut-outs for the two

lumps on each side of the fin, but

one of them is painted blue and

the other is a navigation light. In

addition, the instructions show the

compression strut on the main gear

legs to have a large silver section.

Checking against pictures, that

is incorrect. When the aircraft is

sitting on the ground, the strut

is compressed almost all the way

so only a small section is seen.

For the silver chrome sections I

used a Molotov chrome paint pen

from Paul Fitzmaurice at w w w.

modellingtools.co.uk and found it

to be as good as it was said to be.

The primary leg of the main

gear sits very nicely in its mount,

however, the additional struts are

a little fiddly to get in place. The

exact location is a little vague for

the long struts, parts D2 and D5 so

I did the best I could. I used a little

white glue to hold the parts in place

and then added a drop of superglue

to lock them in place. The main

gear doors sit slightly open when

the aircraft is at rest and this is

represented well by the kit parts.

The doors were a tight fit, which

helps, as they will attach tightly

in place temporarily, once you are

happy with the angles you can

then attach them permanently by

adding a drop of superglue. Finally

all the smaller bits like the aerials

were added to finish the model

CONCLUSION

This is one of Hasegawa’s older kits

and as far as I know, the only model

of the type on the market. Despite

its age it holds up well in the making

with only a few small fit issues and

some tricky decals. It would certainly

benefit from some extra detailing,

although aftermarket additions

don’t appear to exist for this kit.

Overall, not a bad kit and definitely

worth a go if you like modern jet

trainers or aerobatic teams or just

fancy something a little different.

My thanks to Hobbylink Japan

for supplying the kit for review, and

it can be ordered from their website

at http://www.hlj.com. Also available are

the original 2014 twin kit boxing as

well as single kit boxings of the T-4

in both 1/72 and 1/48 scale. One

big advantage in ordering these

from Hobbylink is the that the kit

is considerably cheaper even if you

add postage charges and the risk of

VAT being added by UK customs.

26 • OCTOBER 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

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