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A couple of months ago I was keeping Sword web site monitored, waiting for the release of their 1/48 Reggiane RE2005 Sagittario. My friend @Gene K kindly provided me with the heads up for this very interesting Italian WWII fighter kit, and once it became available, I just had to throw in something to justify the shipment cost, as you do ... So my choice fell on something very British, to wit Sword's Lightning, in 1/72 T4/T5 boxing (end opening box, they should be decalred illegal! ) Since I didn't feel like starting the Sagittario yet, being rather still in a jet mojo, I decided to tackle this. The kit contains only two sprues (the loose piece is the cockpit tub, which separated from its sprue gate due to its weird positioning, middle right in the above pic) the transparencies and some nice complementary bits, like resin exhausts resin seats and a photo-etch fret, mostly pre-painted The decals/transfers sheet is quite big and looks good Instructions seem to be well laid out, although the colors call out is generic and finally, these are the proposed schemes Now, in my recently completed Eurofighter Typhoon WIP thread, I conducted a little poll among fellow BMers on which scheme to build, and the general preference went to the 111 Squadron bird (which coincidentally was also my preference ), but here commence the trouble: the proposed aircraft is a T4, while, as @keefr22 pointed out and a quick search on the 'net confirmed, the IP photoetch is only good for a T5. So what choices do I have? - Build it as 111's T4 and pretend nobody knows the IP is incorrect (that really bothers me, though) - Scratch build a suitable T4 IP (the above mentioned quick search didn't show any pics of it though, so any hint or help would be appreciated) - Choose one of the two T5 schemes in the box (none of them is actually enticing enough to me, but I'm not ruling them out yet) or .... while searching for references, I ended up finding this website lightningt5.com, with loads of pics of this airframe (posted for modelling purposes, will remove if asked) Of course the serials and tail letters are different, but I was already going to cut my own masks for the markings (except for the squadron badge, of course). The trouble is about the small serials on the fuselage sides (XS458); actually, mixing up the ones that already are on the decals sheet, I can go as far as XS45, I just miss a couple of 8.... Bottom line, I'm asking for expertise here to help guiding my choice What do you guys think? Ciao
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Good morning! I picked up this kit from Bruntingthorpe on Sunday along with a 1:48 Airfix Lightning. I will be quite honest- this kit is a mixed blessing: Pros: -Great surface detail -Resin exhaust cans and seats -An Eduard photoetch fret included (this contains the instrument panel, belts and various aerials -A large decal sheet (which was barely used, decals sourced from the spares box for my alternative scheme) -Relatively straightforward to build and paint -Positionable flaps Cons: -Almost nothing in the way of guides to tell you where you should place the various parts (cockpit tub, intake cone and nose gear bay) -Nothing in the way of guide pins for the rudder and elevators -Main wheels with no hole through them (a hole had to be drilled to fit the axle through) -A myriad of ejection pins inside the fuselage, specifically of concern were those in the intake area -Wing-fuselage locating pins did not fit at all and these were subsequently filed down -No option to have open airbrakes!!! What I've done: Well, with a bit of fiddling around I apparently managed to get the intake cone, etc and the cockpit to line up correctly in the fuselage- once that was done I closed it up, added the various surfaces and painted her in Alclad. It's my first time with Alclad! I put down a coat of black Vallejo paint followed by a coat of Alclad gloss coat. I then sprayed on the Alclad, building it up to what it currently is. I didn't need to re-paint the black rudder because that was masked over before I sprayed the Alclad. I then masked and painted the yellow stripes on the wings and rear fuselage, added the IFR probe, small intakes and attached the PE aerials. Kit: Sword Lightning t5 1:72 Paints used: Vallejo model air: black, gold yellow. Alclad II Aluminium Note: Decals used and colour schemes are based off reference pictures but are to some extent fictional Thanks for having a look! Many thanks, Sam
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Having seen Reheat and Paul J's lovely builds of this kit I was inspired to get cracking on mine! I thought I would do a WIP and see what wrinkles there were to iron out, if any. Hopefully it may help anyone else building it as it seems to have sold like hot cakes, so there must be hundreds out there! First thing was a lack of any firm method to hold the cockpit tub in place, so a few strips of plasticard sorted that out, glued on to the very thin marks in the fuselage sides. They won't interfere with the nose bullet, and shouldn't be visible when finished. For a T4 you need to shorten the cable ducts, though this is not mentioned in the instructions. The drawings on the plans show it though. Careful work with a blade removes them, with a final sanding and a little bit of rescribe. They are fine for a T5 though, and can be left alone. Main interior components were assembled, primed, and painted in base colours. The ledges are not so obvious when painted; The seats have an awful lot of pre-painted etch brass to go on them, and look quite nice; Tub made up; Nice pre-painted instrument panel too. Apparently this is not quite accurate for a T4, bieing a T5 panel. I'm not too concerned though, my T4 will be buttoned up with the canopy closed. I thought a bit of nose weight would be advisable. I cyano in a pebble. (My neighbor has put a load of these in the strip of land between our driveways, all sorts of shapes & sizes! Little does he know how useful they are). I needed to trim the front edge of the cockpit sides to get the instrument panel to fit, you can see where I have removed the black paint. Nice easy fit of the tub, it won't even need to be glued. It does close up at the front better than shown here. Then the wings. There are som ejector pin towers that need shaving off, or they will interfere with the fit of the wing halves. Top, not removed, lower trimmed off. Pretty happy with it all so far, I've got a T5 on the go alongside it! Thanks for looking, John