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1/48 Kinetic Dassault Super Etendard **Finished**


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Next up for me is my first Kinetic kit (although I have had their 1/32 Hawk 100 in the stash for a few years), the Super Etendard Modernise. It looks like a great kit and I've heard some good reports so looking forward to it. Decided to go for some aftermarket with Eduards newly released photo-etch cockpit and exterior sets and L'Arsenals resin Alkan pods/pylons and twin bomb racks.

Going to do it in the latest and sadly last camo scheme of the French Navy.

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KittyHawk just came out with their new Super Etendard (1/48th), and it has a boatload of weapons in the kit (much more than the Kinetic kit). I prefer the Kinetic kit, however, simply due to the one-piece fuselage; the KH kit fuselage has a separate aft section that may be problematic if you don't want to expose the engine.

Good luck on your build...and be sure to send us some pix of your progress.

FYI, I think the numerous, extra weapons included in the KH kit, would work very well with the Revell Rafale.

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KittyHawk just came out with their new Super Etendard (1/48th), and it has a boatload of weapons in the kit (much more than the Kinetic kit). I prefer the Kinetic kit, however, simply due to the one-piece fuselage; the KH kit fuselage has a separate aft section that may be problematic if you don't want to expose the engine.

Good luck on your build...and be sure to send us some pix of your progress.

FYI, I think the numerous, extra weapons included in the KH kit, would work very well with the Revell Rafale.

From what I gather from the sprue shots I've seen of the Kitty Hawk kit, the weapons included are from previous kit releases by them such as the Jaguar and Mirage F1 and as such the weapons, not all but quite a few, are not suitable for a SEM.

Muzz

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I've made a start on the SEM, as usual started with the cockpit. Had to remove the molded instrument detail from the front panel and side panels to make way for the Eduard etch. It was then painted in a couple of shades (Tamiya XF-63 and XF-69) to produce a faded black cockpit. Here it is with the colour photo etch still to be added.

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Cockpit with photo etch fitted and inside the fuselage as I forgot to take a photo beforehand!

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The undercarriage parts cleaned up ready for painting.

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I was in a bit of a quandary about what to do with the main undercarriage bay as the Eduard exterior set has parts that require you to remove all detail and re surfaces it, as the detail provided with the kit was pretty decent I decided to keep it, only problem is no less than six ejector pin marks to be filled!

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I agree, looking good so far. It seems that recently with some 'state of the art' kits that the rise in prices is inversely proportional to the fit of parts. I've heard good reports of this one also, so will be watching closely, and if the reports are true I might even buy one.

John

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Some more done on the SEM...............

The exhaust area spayed with Mr Metal Color Stainless Steel and buffed up ready for fitting into one side of the fuselage.

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The air intake trunking is fits together nicely so that the seams are in the corners, a couple of ejector pin marks in each side but I just left them as it'll be very dark in there and won't be seen. This is one half with the side wall and fan blade in place, trunking sprayed with AK Xtreme Metal Steel and the fan blade with Aluminium.

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The fuselage halfs have been joined together after adding the cockpit, front nose gear and main gear bay's and the inside of the airbrakes also go in at this stage. This is the main gear bay and both airbrake area's, sprayed with Ak Xtreme Metal Steal. There is a small step in the lower fuselage join which has needed some attention.

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I took care of the seam line on top of the fuselage with some Mr Surfacer but this was me being overly cautious, it was a good fit and probably didn't need much.

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Great progress so far, you might want to check the fit of the forward section of the canopy as my example needed some work to obtain a good fit.

Watching with interest

RG

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Great progress so far, you might want to check the fit of the forward section of the canopy as my example needed some work to obtain a good fit.

Watching with interest

RG

That it explains that then! I thought maybe I had made an error putting the fuselage together as the front section of the canopy is about 1mm narrower on either side. I've had to shave some plastic off the side of the fuselage and blend in with some Mr Surfacer but it's been quite a straightforward correction.

All the other parts have fitted as they should, a small amount of flash here and there but Kinetic have also shown awareness and a lot of joins are on panel lines. It's not AMK or Tamiya but it's good so far.

Muzz

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A good start :) Mind if I link to this from my review of the PE sets?

Not at all Mike, link away.

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That it explains that then! I thought maybe I had made an error putting the fuselage together as the front section of the canopy is about 1mm narrower on either side. I've had to shave some plastic off the side of the fuselage and blend in with some Mr Surfacer but it's been quite a straightforward correction.

All the other parts have fitted as they should, a small amount of flash here and there but Kinetic have also shown awareness and a lot of joins are on panel lines. It's not AMK or Tamiya but it's good so far.

Muzz

Found the same with mine, glad it was not just me, as I thought the same with regards the fuselage.

Just finished the camo on mine and no other issues were found along the way.

All in all another great kit from Kinetic.

RG

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Here's a couple of photo's to try an show the problem with the front canopy section.....

You can just make out the flat area of grey plastic around the base of the canopy.

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I scraped some of the plastic away and then blended it in with Mr Surfacer.......

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And I've got the main wings in place. I'm impressed with the fit of the parts now, small amount of cleaning up required but the outer wing sections and flaps etc fit perfectly. The instructions appear to have you fit the one piece slats for the extended wing for the slats and flaps up, however, this to me is a mistake as the only way the slats can work in the undeployed position is to fit the two part slats used for when the wings are folded but again the fit is good.

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:yahoo:Noooiiiceee build, Muzz!

Such a nice kit this SuE by Kinetic is. And to think that I decided not to buy the Kinetic kit just to wait 'n' see whut the AMK one was going to be like... :hanging:

Well? The AMK kit was suddenly shelved. Last time I'm sold a smoke screen instead.

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Following your build. The SuE looks pretty. Somehow Kinetic has made some nice French subjects over the years. Have build the Mirage 2000 and the Mirage III. So this SuE is likely to be added to my stash to ;).

Looking forward to your progress.

Evert

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Adding some of the photo-etch parts for main gear bays and the airbrakes.

Here you can see some of the detail has been removed to allow the fitting of the PE which has already been bent to shape.

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The two parts in place on either side.

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The finished airbrakes. Quite fiddly to put together and should have annealed the main parts beforehand. I sprayed the parts before they were folded as I wanted the inside of the structure painted. Nearly lost patience with these a few times and was close to throwing them in the bin. There's internal walls in the centre where the hydraulics go which were a challenge and there is also a side wall that should go on the side where they attach to the fuselage but for the life of me I couldn't work out how it was supposed to fit, in the end I decided to compromise and leave them off as I would probably have lost the plot and wrecked the parts if I'd continued! :owww:

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Quite a few lumps and bumps to be added to the underside, Kinetic have done a good job with these as the smallest of parts are well molded and fit snugly where their supposed to.

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My name's Murray and I'm a lazy modeller.................

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In my defense the frame around the canopy is a bit soft and not that well defined so it would have been a bit difficult to cut around.

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On to the pylons now as I'm preparing to put on a primer coat. Kinetic have been a bit vague here and don't provide as much detail as you'd expect. The instructions appear to have forgotten to tell you to open up holes for the centre fuselage pylon, either that or the holes are supposed to be there but aren't. I'm using the L'Arsenal inner pylons and had to decide where was the correct position to fit them as only one locating pin is provided on the pylon.

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I'm also adding L'Arsenal's ALKAN pods and pylons and as there is no reference for the position of these I had to study a few photo's, hopefully there in the correct place.

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