Scale aviation modeller international

detail. Since I discourage people

from picking up my kits, I went

with what was provided.

Stage 4 fits the nose bay and

then adds the main gear bays,

which are quite nice three-part

assemblies. I’m pretty sure the

instructions have got some of the

part numbers mixed up, but they

only really fit one way, so with a

dry run they went together OK.

There’s a colour callout for

these areas to be painted medium

sea grey, even with a (BS) 637

reference. That seemed odd to

me, but again pictures seem to

bear it out, so I went with it. Later

the instructions would have you

paint the undercarriage legs

the same colour, but it is clearly

lighter. I used light aircraft grey.

Stage 5 is building the

exhausts, and while they look

quite nice I question some of

the breakdown of parts and the

way parts have to be sandwiched

between others, complicating

painting. The exhausts have

reasonable depth, nice turbine

detail. and a well moulded

afterburner ring. However....

What we come to is probably

the biggest problem with this kit. If

the real aircraft can be considered

to have a defining feature it would

be that at rest, the thrust vectoring

nozzles droop and point inwards.

Always! The only time the exhaust

nozzles show as provided in the kit

is when the engines are running

(and remember there’s no pilot

figure provided), so this is going to

require some serious and (I suspect)

difficult modifications, or some

aftermarket resin. If you build it

as-is, it’s wrong, and that’s a real

shame. So, I decided to leave this

section for now, in the expectation

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