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++ FINISHED PHOTOS ++ - 1/48 Eduard Sukhoi Su-17M3 "Fitter"


trickyrich

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Ok here is my beast for this build and a beast it is! I wanted to do something a bit different as usual. So it was either going to be a Su-17/22 or Su-24, so after a bit of searching the 17/22 it was.

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To those who may not know, this model was originally released by Kopro, later to be released by Eduard with extra goods as one of their limited edition models. This was all really good however they didn’t fix any of the issues with the original models and the M3 version has a dozy! :nono:

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The Su-22-M3 was the export version of the Su-17-M3 which was fitted with the Tumanskiy R29BS-300 (which was less powerful and larger in diameter) rather than the original Lyulka AL-21F. The RB29 resulted in the 22-M3 having a fatter rear section around the engine and exhaust being slightly shorter. When comparing the two profiles the difference is quite noticeable and nobody makes a conversion kit! Unfortunately the best colour schemes are for the 22-M3’s. Oh plus there were a couple of other issues but they are minor compared to the engine issue. So mine will be the bog standard Russian version, though I have yet to make up my mind on whether it will be navy or airforce.

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The additional extra bit will be the Cutting Edge “Flaps and Slats” and new tail can, and no they aren’t the real Cutting Edge products, but a “one off” copy made by some little old lady somewhere in the old Eastern Block!! :hmmm: Least she did a good job.

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Anyway can’t wait to start this beast, should be lots of fun........gee it’s big!

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The engine mess is very annoying Rich ! I agree that the 22M3 is more interesting, would have been great to make the peruvian or the lybian schemes.

I've looked into this kind of conversion myself and it's not easy. One compromise could be shortening the fuselage and adding the various different scoops only, not 100% accurate of course. Changing the profile of the rear fuselage area would be very tough work with no certain success.

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I have both versions of the kit in the stash, I did think about entering one in the GB but I don't think I'll have time to get it done! I read somewhere about cross kitting with the SU-7 to get the correct back end, did they have the older engine?...

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I have both versions of the kit in the stash, I did think about entering one in the GB but I don't think I'll have time to get it done! I read somewhere about cross kitting with the SU-7 to get the correct back end, did they have the older engine?...

No, the Su-7 had the older Lyulka AL-7, while the Su-22M3 has the Tumansky R29. This was used on the earlier Su17 export models for a number of reasons, not least that it powered the MiG-23 that a number of users already had in service.

It could be however that the Su-7 has a rear fuselage closer to the 22M3, I'll have a look at a few pictures.

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I have really only had a chance to have a bit of a look at everything plus glue all the bits I usually leave til last!

I have decided to build/paint the Naval version of the M3... mostly because they were the only colours I could get! :D Plus it'll have an all acrylic paint job!

The kit moulding looks very much like an old Esci kit.....both good and bad! :unsure:

Anyway I now away with work so now have a couple of weeks to think about the build before I can get back to it.

Who knows what I’ll have planned for it by then!! :hmmm:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok I’m finally back to the beast.....

Well I have been busy, though not in the order as recommended by instructions....

I’m doing this a little bit back to front.

All the things that go bang are together, just need to be cleaned up.

With great trepidation I brought out the scalpel and starting removing bits for the “flap/slat” mod kit. It’s a bit scary to start ripping into a limited edition Eduard kit like this!!!

OK.....

The plastic is just so soft it’s actually going to be a bit of a problem, it’s some of the softest plastic I’ve come across, it’s my first Eduard kit, but surely the plastic is not that soft on all the rest!

The “flaps & slats” mod kit was bought thinking it was a Cutting Edge kit, but it turns out to be more like a “Blunt Edge” made buy some old grand ma in the former Eastern Bloc! Hence to be known as the "BE" bits! Plus it doesn't help when the photocopy instructions refer to an "OEZ" kit??? Hopefully this was the same as the old Kopro kit????

The BE bits arn’t too bad but need a bit of work to clean up, this didn’t stop me from attacking the Eduard kit.....it should have though!

Things are not the best fit on the wings inner flaps, will need more work.

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The fuselage air brakes went in without too much trouble, though it was a bit scary cutting into the virgin plastic......no guides!

This is basically the process I followed.....

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Cutting out old bits and fitting new "BE" resin bits...

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....masking to stop too much collateral damage to surounding plastic...

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careful sanding....

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....final polish.

Came out ok, what you can see has been polished, just needs the smallest amount of filler or “Mr 500” to sort out. Most of the gaps that can be seen are actually filled with super glue, finish is really nice. Just needs a tidy up and final polish.

I’m getting all the mods out of the way first before working on the cockpit.

The cockpit area is giving me grief, nothing seems to line up, no quite as easy as the instructions lead you to believe, no photos of that area as may need to pull apart again!!!

Hope to have it already for painting before I head off to work again....

Next update should have cockpit photos............maybe

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have not seen this post till know!

great work!

it is definitely a different set of resin wings you have there! it is very different in details!

good luck with the cockpit, I did quite a lot of dry fitting and cut of all the alignment pins, also for the cockpit tub....

and then some courage and some clamps :)

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have not seen this post till know!

great work!

it is definitely a different set of resin wings you have there! it is very different in details!

good luck with the cockpit, I did quite a lot of dry fitting and cut of all the alignment pins, also for the cockpit tub....

and then some courage and some clamps :)

and I though the cockpit was going to be the easiest bit........ :weep:

After seeing your resin kit I wish I had known about them, would have gotten that one (or even looked harder for the “Cutting Edge” kit) instead of the “Blunt Edge” version I have!

At the start of all this I actually for a moment though this was going to be a fairly simple build but the deeper I get into it the more extreme the work required!

Anyway.....here’s where we’re at;

Most of the time has been spent sorting out those rotten inner flaps. Lots of sanding, filling, test fits, sanding........etc. Am finally getting to a stage where it’s starting to look right, now the issue is the flaps themselves are completely wrong in shape and too small. Easiest way to sort out is to laminate front section with plastic strips and reshape, fairly simple, just time consuming. :wall:

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still looks rough due to all the dust....and filler....

Thanks to the photos exdraken has on his build and the link, I now have details if the inner surface of the flap section and wing box/glove section.........more extra work!

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oh and nice shiny nose cone

Tail section after some cursing is coming along nicely, added an internal section for the rudder to fit into, plus sorted out the shape.

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Slots in rudder were too wide, so are having fill with card, there was one in the centre slot but fell out.

Outer wings...less said the better, just a little bit more work required.

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No detail at all on any of the moving surface, so have to re-scribe...hate that job! Though it does help to have panel lines like the old Esci kits! :P

Only bit of painting is the first coat on cockpit tub and ejector seat.

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Air brake mod done, looks nice a smooth.....though doesn’t in the photo!

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Main undercarriage is horrible and doesn’t fit, had to pin everything together so as I can try and get the alignment correct. Does anyone know if there is an after-market version available?

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Well as you can see there is still quite a bit of work required before I can even think about closing up the body. But least the end is insight for all the major mod work, just lots and lots of tiding up.

Sorry for the delay in updates, internet down for nearly two days and just the sheer work of this build.

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good progress!!!

if still possible, look for the base color of your cockpit.

All Su-22 cockpit photos I saw till now had a greyish one, not bluish turquoise like a lot of early MiGs have.

airbrakes look good!!

Regards

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My old camera doesn't really do colours all that well. The actual colour is a very good match to the pre-painted Eduard bits.......which I hope are the correct colour.

But was worried a bit about the colour so rolled the net to see if could for any better referances, found a couple.

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These do show a bluish colour for the cockpits, very close to RLM76, but these are (should be) Su-17's. It's probably quite possible they were different colours in the export versions. Am going to have to find better referance photos.

Is interesting to note the colour of the cockpit floor in the LH photo and he wear. With the amount of hassle I'm having at the moment with my cockpit i'll probably have the same worn look as this one!

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Looking good, you're doing a great job with this kit !

Re. the mention of OEZ, I believe this kit actually originates with them

Cockpit: I have the Kagero booklet with pics of a polish aircraft and the cockpit is similar to RLM 76 in this one too.

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back to the beast......

Have had a few days away from this build while working on the Seagull, plus chasing up reference material.

While chasing up reference material found a wonderful web site that is (was ) packed with heaps of great aviation books. For a small sum of $40 AUD you great unlimited access to all their eBooks for one month! Needless to say........24hrs & 250+ books later.....well they were free with the membership! :D Have now some excellent additional references books for this and all future builds (must take library total now to well over 2000+ books, eBooks [46GB’s worth] and hard copies!)!

Anyway, after reading a couple of other builds in progress plus looking at new photos have decided to add “blower/inlet” panels to the nose of beasty. I swear this is the last bit of panel modification I do to this build.....just getting out of hand, will never finish at this rate!

Below are a series of photos showing the process, sorry if not the best.

First up used Dremel to drill out basic hole then cleaned up with sharp scalpel, next cleaned up inlets..

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Maybe hard to see but plastic is very thick, needed to cave out inlets.

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Added inlet flaps made from plastic card, these flop inwards on the ground. Plus added supports for lower inlet flaps.

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Next added brass lower inflaps, these appear at rest to flop slightly outwards, probably due to sloppy hingers? Not quite sure, but all on ground(un-powered) photos show them slightly protuding. Once everything is completely dry will tidy up, do look good thou!

Have started the longish process of detailing the cockpit, which was the reason I initially went looking for reference photos in the first place.

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Floor looks a bit rough, but this is just the start of the process, all photos show the floor to be very worn and rough......lots of work to go on in here!! :crosseyed::hypnotised:

Everything else is coming along nicely, have some great detail shots of the wheel wells, not sure if I will go into to much detail there, will depend on time.

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Some fantastic work going on here and you make it look so easy!

thanks, but thats sort of the problem, it's very easy to get carried away, plus it adds a lot of additional time.

These flaps have been raising a few issues with people and have been talked about on another build. After much research (new books helped) I have finally gotten to the bottom of this.....maybe.

These “blower” intake flaps, they're also referred to as auxiliary air intake doors, have a couple of modes of operation.

With the engine running either stationary, or taxing and at low airspeeds they will open inwards to a maximum of around 39°. This aids with additional airflow into the engine (as normally expected).

Above Mach 1.35 they then start to open outwards (this may occur earlier but I cannot find references) to a maximum of 37°. This is to release excess air from the intake after the nose cone has moved to its maximum forward position.

The operation of these flaps, and nose cone, are controlled by the ESUV-1V system in accordance with speed and engine air consumption.

On the ground with everything unpowered they tend to flop around, probably due to their positions they either sag inwards (top ones) or slightly outwards (bottom ones).

Reference books: Lock On #27 – Su22 M3 pg4 and Aerofax – Sukhoi Su-7/-17/-20/-22 pg93, show these areas in detail.

Unfortunately they show too much detail........more work to do!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Nice work so far Rich, it does look like a "pig" of a kit :)

Eric I have much better word to describe this build........

Ok I’m finally back to this build and have an update. Progress so far has been really slow mainly due to a few cockpit issues but mostly due to the wings and flaps.

My lovely resin flap set (“Blunt Edge” not to be confused with the good Cutting Edge version) is really giving me grief mainly due to the fact nothing actually fits or aligns correctly. Plus once you do get i to fit you then find out it’s all actually wrong!

The resin kit has you believe that both inner and outer flaps pivot around the centre axis of the flap, and thus so is moulded to do so. But actual drawings of the flaps show this is quite different for each flap set! The outer flaps are almost pivoted on the lower leading edge and have a small thin section of the lower wing which folds out to allow them to drop. The draw under the wings shows you what I mean. This required quite a bit of surgery and a little bit of guess work (have no idea how many actuators actually deploy these flaps so made 3), the result looks to be a bit more accurate than before.

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The RH wing still needs to have the original mouldings in the flap area removed, forgot to take better photo of completed mode, will be in next update.

The inner flaps again are different they don’t rotate about their centre axis, instead they appeared to be pushed straight back until the lower control arm is fully extended, they are pushed further by the actuator and now pivot down around the lower control arm. Again a little bit artistic license was taken, but they look much closer to the actual photos than before.

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From this angle pivot points don't look all that great, but when wing is fitted it will look ok.

These two items have taken the vast majority of the time to sort out, I still have the leading edge flaps to do but these should be a bit easier to sort out.......unless I break them. I may just get the alignment right and add pins and then leave them off until painting is finished.

Finally got to close up the fuselage, I must say she’s a big beasty! Though I have this really horrible feeling that the nose cone may not straight, I may have to do some major surgery to sort this out. With resin involved in both ends super glue was required in the joining process so I can’t just re-open it! There are ways to sort this out, so not a show stopper.

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Almost no filler was required on the fuselage which was amazing, though panel line alignment is poor to say the least. Will have to do a lot of panel re-scribing.....which I hate!

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It's all just sitting there so I can get an idea of the size...she's big!

Fitted the tail section plus section between tail and spine, little bit of filler was required.

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The control column just didn’t look right so made something that looks a little better and closer to the real column. Instrument cowling is finished, added tissue covering to the top of it as all photos show it have some sort of felt covering. Opps forgot to take photo.

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Original on the left, will look the part once painted, sorry about photo quality.

Have finally....well almost, sorted out what weapons it will carry. Had gotten all excited over the range of TV and Laser guided missiles it could carry until I remembered this was the –M3 version and it doesn’t have the additional avionics or screen in the cockpit. So am going for the more conventional strike weapons. A couple of SPPU-22 gun pods and then either a pair of B-13L rocket pods or a pair of S-25 Laser Guided 122mm rockets. Either way they will suit the period of the plane and make a big bang!

With luke everything should now progress al lot quicker....I hope, may even get time to work on other GB!

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very nice work on the flaps!!

they really look like the drawing!

I thing I will leave my outer ones as they are now.....

maybe will do the inner ones a bit more realistic, as they are not glued yet... :)

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Have made some progress and learnt something new even though I took a break from this project for a couple of days.

Have the wings on now and started to add some of the PE accessories.

I took extra time with the wing fitment to ensure I had a good join as I didn’t want to have to do any unnecessary filling. The wing joints were poor to start with, as I found in early test fits. I cut off the alignment taps and planed down the edge as best I could to ensure a nice neat join. Even doing this I still had issues getting a nice clean join, but it was much better than original. The finish join still had quite horrible gaps, as mentioned the fit of parts reminded me of early Esci models. The wing to fuselage joint was very rounded over and I would have needed to remove nearly 1mm of plastic to get a nice clean flesh joint, but this would have removed the strength of the wings (locating tabs had to be removed).

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So I was left with a gap that required filling, normally I would have brought out filler and gone for broke on the joints. There was detail there that I didn’t want to lose or have to re-do, hate re-scribing panel lines!

This time I tried something new I have seen others try, which when thinking about makes so much sense (actually have done similar repairing motorcycle fairings!). Rather than using filler I used stretched sprue and plastic sheet. By using thin strips or plastic and stretched sprue I found I could easily fill all the gaps without the added mess and collateral damage of filler. A quick and easy way of getting nice clean joins!!! Have done similar things with resin but never thought about doing the same with plastic. Unfortunately I didn’t take photos of the steps with this build but will next time. Am 100% converted, can almost ditch the filler, it’s that good and easy!

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Leading egde/fuselage joint needs to be finished plus need to clean up leading edge rivets!

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Upper inner flap you can see sprue filler still needs to be finished off. Join in undercarriage wells still needs to be doen plus a little bit of detailing as well (sic).

That said the wings are on and the main fuselage is almost done. Decided to give the rudder just a slight kick to one side, may not be 100% correct but gives the plane a bit of life. Started to fit all the extra PE bits, once fitted I buffed them down so that they didn’t appear to be “stuck on”.

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Rudder mounts just need to be tided up.

The main undercarriage doors were just flat bits of plastic, so from photos I tried to give them a bit of life, am happy with the look now.

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Plus tissue covered instrument cowling, the correct shape now.....still haven't painted.

Getting very close to the first coat, which will be a nice all over coat of aluminium before panel lining. Have a cunning plan in mind! :wicked:

Am really please for the first time in how the build is going. Sorted out issue with nose spike, it was out of alignment so some not so gentle “re-alignment” was required, all good now.

With luck will have the majority of the main paintwork finished before I head back on shift next week!

Plus changed header because this is actually an Su-17M3.

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ok big progress on this front, way further advanced to where I thought I'd be!

This will probably be quick a long update due to lots of photos.

Finally finished tiding up all the joints a mod areas so it’s painting time. I mentioned that I had a plan on how I was going to paint it which was a bit different than how I normally do. I want this one to be quite worn and fairly heavily weathered, all those days sitting in an exposed revetment, with chipped and fading paint.

To start this process the whole plane was painted in Model Master’s Aluminium Buffing Metalizer Lacquer, with appropriated bits in Stainless and Burnt Iron. Once dry they were given a nice polish up. Actually looked so good I was for a short moment thinking of leaving it like that! The first set of masks were applied to the panel that were to stay metal.

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all shiny!!!

Next was a pre-shade with a dark green acrylic, had a bit of trouble getting the lines fine enough, just can’t get the old compressor to run correctly at very low pressures >15psi.

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Next the underside was painted before more and more masks were applied for each of the camouflage colours. In between some of the steps some of the masks had to be removed which chipped/lifted little bits of paint in various spots......was very happy with this!

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After the final colour was on the masks came off pretty quick, just love acrylics, don’t know why it took me so long to start using them. Again when removing masks more bits a paint flaked off and other than a couple of big spots which I didn’t really want (they’re easy to fix) it started to give me the effect I’m after. I’ll let the paint cure for a day before starting the weathering process, need to have the first step done before the clear coats go on. Plus I still have a couple of odd paint jobs to finish as well, dielectric panels etc.

But am really chuffed at the finish, it came out much better than I expected. Though looking at it there is still quite a bit of work to go but it should start to come together quite quickly....I hope!

The weapons arrived today, will post photos shortly. :yahoo:

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Not too much for this update, have spent quite a bit of time cleaning up and finishing the main painting. Should be ready tomorrow to do some more weathering before the top coat of clear, hopefully decals will be complete later in the day. Am planning to have the final matt top coat finished before I head back on shift.

I wasn't happy with the finish on the cannon flash protection plates each side of the fuselage. These should be steel and quite shiny, however due to the finish on the plastic they didn't look right (forgot to smooth this section out before painting!). After looking at numerous photos of this section on different aircraft I decided to do a little mod! :hmmm: On a lot of aircraft this was an additional steel plate added to each side of the fuselage, so the best way to get the finish I was after was to add the plates!

So off with the paint around this section, I then made a mask of each side as they are both different, before filling the huge panels line with sprue before smoothing out.

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Next using the masks I made two plates to which I added rivets before fining and polishing smooth.

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Next glued in place...

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They look a bit thick but thats just the light, they are actually thin enough to read through!

Then repainting and polishing, results are not too bad, better than before and closer to the photos.

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Opp's just noticed rough marks on gun port leading edge......more sanding and painting.....least this time only a tiny bit!!! :doh:

Again not all aircraft had these additional plates fitted, most pictures with them fitted seem to be Soviet aircraft, in some photo’s these plates are not quite the same size as the normal plate in the fuselage. Can’t find any good photo’s of this area on Naval Aviation aircraft, so a bit of “artist license” has been taken!

As mentioned in last post, my additional weaponry arrived to great excitement, and as I was boring my wife with details a photo’s I found out something very interesting. There was a photo of a Soviet Su-17M3 with SPPU-22 gun pod’s fitted to pylons 5&6, most of the information I have read showed this was not a normal option (though have now found other photos as well).

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So now have final load-out sorted:

Heavy Strike

B-13 Rocket Pods - pylons 1S&2S

SPPU-22 Gun Pods - pylons 5&6 rear facing

AA-8 Aphid’s - pylons 9&10

S-25L Laser Guided Rockets - pylons 3&4

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