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Su-27 Flanker B 1:48 Hobby Boss The Su-27 and sibling Mig-29 were developed as a complementary pair of heavy and lighter fighters to combat the F-15 that was in development as the F-X at the time. It first flew in 1977, but encountered serious problems that resulted in some fairly spectacular crashes, some of which were fatal, but with persistence and successive rounds of improvements it came on strength with the Russian air force in 1985, but was still plagued with problems that prevented it from being seen in operational service for a further five years, and it is known as the Su-27S or Flanker B by the NATO countries. A navalised Flanker was also put into development, but that's a whole 'nother model. It proved to be a capable fighter, and after the fall of the Berlin wall, Russia continued its development, with other variants incorporating improvements, and wholesale conversions leading to other marks entirely, such as the SU-30, Su-33 and Su-34 with side-by-side pilot seating. The Flanker continues to impress the crowds at airshows with the controversial (for some reason) and contagious Cobra manoeuver that caused quite a stir when first seen. Sukhoi had a number of export successes, and China also manufactured Flankers under license as the Shengyang J-11 after an initial delivery of Russian built airframes. The Kit This is a newly tooled kit from Hobby Boss and arrives in a large top opening box with a Flanker flying across the front. Inside you are greeted by a card insert with the two fuselage halves and their blended wings secured to it by coated wire, twisted around the nose, tail and wings. The nose and tail are further protected by a wrapping of thin foam, while the delicate parts of the wingtips are surrounded by a detachable sprue for good measure. Under the insert are fifteen more sprues of various sizes in the same grey styrene, two clear sprues, a small fret of what looks to be Photo-Etch (PE) stainless steel, or something similar. There are also three black "rubber" tyres, and two decal sheets plus of course the instruction booklet and two separate glossy pages detailing the painting and decaling. The fuselage and wings strapped to the insert in the top of the box as a monolithic chunk of plastic is impressive, and having a look over it whilst perusing photos of the real thing, it seems to be ticking the boxes in terms of shape, although it's still tricky to be 100% about that when big chunks of the airframe are still on the sprues. That said, there are no immediate alarm-bells going off, so I'm hoping this turns out to be a more complete job than their recent Mig-31 that was a little disappointing. Construction starts with the cockpit, which is well detailed and has a multi-part seat, rudder pedals and control column, plus decals for all the main instrument panels. The instructions switch straight to building up the landing gear, as the nose gear is held in place by the addition of the gear bay to the lower fuselage, so they must have decided they might as well get you to build the main gear too. The gear legs are multi-part affairs, and the nose leg has the characteristic mud-guard and landing lights attached, the former in two parts that close around the nose wheel. The wheels are all two-part hubs with those black rubberised tyres, which have tread pattern moulded in, although no sidewall detail is present. Speaking purely personally, I would replace these with resin parts, as the plastic of the tyre seems rather slick and may have difficulty taking paint, as well as the usual detail improvements that resin provides. The cockpit is installed from the underside in the upper fuselage, while the nose gear with the two exhaust trunks are placed in the lower half. The trunking is blanked off at the front by a simulated engine rear, and a slightly chunky-looking flame holder for the afterburner. That's it! The fuselage can go together, and if the dry-fit is anything to go by, there should be little if any clean-up to do. The leading edge slats and flaps are separate, and adding them completes the wings, while the elevators fit to the rear at the side of the exhausts. The twin stabs have separate rudders and asymmetrical detail at the trailing edge, which is as it should be, and if you'd read the Mig-31 review, you'll know why it's worth a mention. You then have a choice of either open or constricted exhaust petals, which are both single parts per side, but one of my constricted parts had a tiny under-shot in the lip, which could be fixed fairly easily with a little putty and re-shaping, but it is worth checking your copy before you add it to the loft insulation. The rear section of the engine pods are moulded into the fuselage, but the forward section is separate, with a detailed roof section, and a built-in FOD (Foreign Object Debris) screen blocking your view of the intake fan for the engines, which are supplied anyway. These fit onto ledges at the front of the fuselage-bound aft sections, with a cut-out over each main wheel bay, allowing you to fit the pre-prepared legs at this point if you wish. Each main gear bay has two doors, which have their actuator jacks included, as does the main nose gear bay, with the smaller rear door captive to the trailing retraction jack. The nose cone is a single part, and has plenty of space for a nose weight if you think it will be necessary, although the instructions don't mention it. The canopy is also added at this stage, which is broken down into windscreen section with a clear bulb for the windscreen mounted sensor added as a separate part, and the canopy which has opening equipment depicted, as well as the PE rear-view mirrors. The canopy is correctly blown in front profile, which requires a three-part mould, so there is a seam on the top of the canopy that you will need to sand away and then polish back to clarity. The windscreen part seems to suffer a bit from distortion around the curved section at the lower edges where it meets the framing, but a dip in Klear might help alleviate this to an extent. Add a few probes and sensors, and that's the airframe built. No modern fighter would be complete without a selection of weapons to hang under its wings and fuselage, and the Su-27 is not short of stations, with three under each wing and another four under the fuselage. Of course, they're seldom all populated, so check your references, choose a layout from the diagram on the back page, or just make one up that looks cool to you, and shrug your shoulders when someone tells you it's not representative. It's your model! In the box you get the following types: 4 x R-73E (AA-11 Archer) short range A2A missile. 4 x R-27R (AA-10 Alamo-A) semi-active radar homing medium to long range A2A missile. 4 x R-27ER (AA-10 Alamo-C) semi-active radar homing extended range A2A missile. The smaller Archers are single part bodies with top & bottom fins moulded-in, and the side fins as separate parts, with a clear seeker head and additional exhaust part. The Alamo missile bodies are split vertically with the same method for adding the additional fins. The wing tip launch rails can be swapped out for streamlined ECM pods at your option, so again check your references. Markings You get two markings options from the box, both of which have a rather blue theme, but are different enough to appeal to a lot of folks, and overall the decals of of good quality, however the blue seems to be slightly out of register, which affects the black-outlined "14" and the white outlined "10", and would benefit from a dot of matching blue paint for the former, and a careful trim for the latter. From the box you can build one of the following, but as usual you don't get much information on the where and when these schemes were carried: Blue 14 – Three-tone pale blue/mid-blue/grey camouflage. Blue 10 – Two-tone pale blue/mid-blue camouflage with a red/blue/white stripe and shield on the port outer stab. If you are a stickler for detail, you might want to invest in some Su-27 Stencils from Begemot (48009(1)), as you can bank on those being comprehensive, and the instructions will be a little easier to follow without the national markings on the same diagram. The second sheet provides cockpit decals, which have instruments and details, but no background colour to match your paint to (which is a good thing), and a substantial number of stripes and stencils for the included missiles. Conclusion This seems to be a promising release of a model that has been needed to replace the rather archaic Academy kit for some time now. Detail is good, and the shape also seems to be too, although the true proof of the pudding will be in the building. I think I have some Eduard resin wheels somewhere. Consider me tempted. Highly recommended. Currently discounted at time of writing! Review sample courtesy of