Kittyhawk Etendard IVP/IVM 1:48

[Mike]

Etendard IVP/IVM

1:48 Kittyhawk

 

 

The Étendard was the final iteration of a number of similar designs that were initially intended as a light fighter for France, with possible customers in other NATO countries, which when beefed-up was considered for naval aviation, with ruggedised prototypes constructed soon after.  Named the Étendard IV, the French navy ordered IVM fighters, and a smaller number of IVP reconnaissance variantsf or operation from their carrier fleet beginning in the early 60s.  They were well-liked by their pilots, as they excelled in manoeuvrability and were a joy to fly.  A quick look on YouTube will find you plenty of footage of pilots enjoying themselves at the controls.  Originally scheduled to be replaced by the Jaguar M, this plan was sabotaged by Dassault lobbying, who just happened to have the Super Étendard waiting in the wings.  The SuE replaced the Étendard on the carriers at the beginning of the 80s, with the last airframe withdrawn from service toward the end of the decade.  As France was the sole operator, there were no Étendards left flying at that point, with a few finding their way to museums around the world.  The SuE has now been replaced by the Rafale M in turn after a long career, with the last flight in 2016.

 

The Kit

Having already kitted the Super Étendard, so it was only natural for Kittyhawk (KH) to kit her older sibling due to parts commonality, and here she is, fairly soon after the SuE, which you can read about here.  This new kit shares many of the sprues with the SuE due to their common heritage, but this kit has been moulded in a slightly different grey.  The box is standard Kittyhawk fare, and inside are five sprues, two of which are still joined together after being folded over - a bit of a pet-hate of mine, even though it is easily resolved with a pair of sprue cutters.  The clear sprue is separately bagged, and the two sheets of decals are supplied in a ziplok bag that also contains the Photo-Etch (PE) sheet.  The instruction booklet has a glossy cover, and in the centrefold is a 4xA4 fold-out painting and decaling guide that can be pulled off the staples for easier reference if you like.

 

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the seat and cockpit tub, which builds up from individual surfaces for improved detail, and a set of crew belts are added to the well-detailed seat from PE.  Decals are supplied for the main instrument panel and side consoles, which have a black background for your ease.  The nose gear bay is also built from individual walls, and the nose leg is added now, although it can be left off if you wish.  The nose wheel is fixed between the two-part yoke, which attaches to the end of the main leg, and is braced in the bay by two more struts.  The nose section of the fuselage can then be closed up, and here you have a choice of either the recce nose for the IVP with the fixed fuel probe and camera ports, or the pointed nose of the IVM with the retractable fuel probe and the blade-like ECM antenna.  The main gear bay boxes and the shallower air-brake bays are then installed in the man fuselage lower surface from the inside, with the former made up from individual panels for added detail.  The removable aft fuselage halves are then joined around a diagonally placed rib and the arrestor hook and fairing are glued to the underside in preparation for final fuselage assembly.  Before that however, the complete basic engine is built up from two halves, front and rear faces, plus stator blades at the rear in PE, which is mated to the exhaust trunk and tail-pipe.  This assembly is held inside the fuselage by a bulkhead at the front and a pair of large pins at the front of the exhaust section, allowing the exhaust to project from the fuselage.  While joining the fuselage halves, a spine insert is included, as well as a lower tray at the front of the underside, which meshes with the nose section, blending the two together.  With the glue dry, the remainder of the spine and both intakes are fitted along with their splitter plates, and the aft fuselage section that was built up earlier, which although it isn't mentioned in the instructions could be left off to expose the engine in a maintenance diorama, or just for the hell of it.

 

The large tail has an insert with a large probe added to the leading edge, and has a separate rudder that is added after the two halves are mated.  The elevators are both single parts, and have a PE swash-plate between them and the tail, as well as a pair of large blade antennae and their base-plates in PE too.  The tail fits via a standard tongue-and-slot fixture, and a couple of little clear lights are added to the sides of the rear fairing and to the spine in front.  At this point the canopy is scheduled for installation, with small pegs on the windscreen part to help with registration on the lip, and a separate canopy that can be set in the open or closed position.  Now for the wings.

 

 

 

The wings are built from the upper and lower halves, with leading-edge slats as separate parts, the folding tips, flaps and ailerons too, with a PE spoiler on the upper surface.  Clear parts are added to the wingtips, and they are fitted to the root slots in the fuselage along with an additional section of the root that isn't moulded in.  The main gear legs are simple struts with separate oleo-links, and a separate brake detail that fits outboard of the two part wheels.  These wheels are a bit "wooden" looking, with sparse detail that might benefit from some aftermarket when it becomes available, but once on and hidden under the wings you may decide not to bother.  These are fitted into the newly installed wings and then surrounded by the bay doors, which each have hinge and operating struts included, as do those for the nose.  The underside is festooned with little antennae, ports and intakes/outlets, as well as a pair of optional camera bulges that run along the centreline.  The airbrakes are incorrectly identified by the instructions as left and right canopies, but as it's obvious what they are, it's not a hindrance.  They are made up from a styrene outer, with PE inners that have detail etched in to them for better scale effect.  As a useful addition, a nifty little crew-ladder is included in the box to help you out.

 

The weapons sprues are no strangers, and have been seen on the SuE, Jaguar and probably other kits that I can't remember too.  From the box you get the following:

 

2 x 68mm Rocket pods

1 x PHIMAT pod

2 x Magic.2 missiles

1 x Barracuda pod

2 x twin 250kg bomb carrier (4 bombs in total)

2 x BL755 bombs

2 x Fuel tanks

2 x AS.30 missiles

 

A full set of pylons are supplied for the weapons, with a different style for the fuel tanks, and separate adaptor rails for the Magics, plus moulded-in rails for the two types of pod.  A diagram shows which pylons could take each type, but do check your references to establish a likely load if you are going for accuracy.

 

 

Markings

Another kit from Kittyhawk with a generous decal option count, with five available from the box.  Four are in the centre pages of the instruction booklet, with the final option on the back cover, which folds out to accommodate the double-page profiles.  From these options you can build one of the following:

 

• IVM White 117 of Retirement Flotille 16F – gray/grey blue over light grey blue.
• IVM White 118 of Retirement Flotille 16F - gray/grey blue over light grey blue.
• IVM White 118 of Retirement Flotille 16F, 2000 - gray/grey blue over light grey blue, with a white streamer painted down the fuselage sides and a red arrow head on the nose.
• IVM White 9 of Retirement Escadrille 59S, 1981 – Blue over white.
• IVM Retirement Escadrille 59S – NAS Hyeres – Blue over white with a red/white/blue stripe down the tail and fuselage 1961-1991.

 

 

 

Two special schemes and three in-service airframes is a good mix, and as mentioned in the Su-17 thread, the decals are improving.  The decals are sharp, in register with good colour density, but the black section of the ribbon that starts in the tail has some fine crazing if you look under magnification, which will in all probability cause no problems with application, but is worth noting.  The smaller sheet contains the instrument decals and some decorative shield, and here the printing of the carrier film has drifted out of register so that the top of the instrument panels have been exposed, and great care will be needed to ensure that the delicate printing doesn't break up on application.  Hopefully this is a one-off, and doesn't affect the whole batch.

 

 

Conclusion

Another welcome modern tooling of an important French Naval marque that will please many modellers French or otherwise.  Detail is good, construction is sensibly arranged, and with five decal options and a sheet of PE completes the package.  If you're PE phobic, the only folding needed is in the air-brakes, so you could always leave those closed and avoid any folding.  Who will know?

 

Highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

and available soon from major hobby shops

 

 

 

[Antoine]

As always, thanks.

Thats many retirements!

Possible to see the decals sheet, to see if there are codes for any aircraft (I'm thinking about 115, one of two IVP that were hit by IR SAM above Bosnia in 94).

Edited January 25, 2017 by Antoine

[Laurent]

Thank you for the review Mike.

FYI the wing tanks provided to do not apply to the Etendard IV but to the Super-Etendard. The Etendard IV almost never flew without its 600L tanks. Some can be found in:

- the Heller Etendard IV kit

 

- the Kinetic Super-Etendard kit

 

The seat doesn't look the same as in the real thing.

 

Edited January 25, 2017 by Laurent

[Julien]

6 hours ago, Antoine said:

 

Possible to see the decals sheet, to see if there are codes for any aircraft (I'm thinking about 115, one of two IVP that were hit by IR SAM above Bosnia in 94).

Edited to add the decal sheet. Mike took the picture just forgot? to put it in. Will threaten him with Mister Kit reviews if he does it again

[Mike]

It was late, and most of me had gone to bed. Thanks Julien

[Kjetil Åkra]

Having put Kittyhawk´s Super Etendard together (almost ready for paint now) I may be able to offer a few things on the basic contraction of these kits. 

 

They actually go together very well, despite the quite complex arrangement of fuselage parts. The main problem I found was with the tail section to the main fuselage; be sure you dry fit a lot here. Also, the fuselage spine insert may require some extra work and of course, dry fitting. 

 

But take your time putting the fuselage together and you should encounter no major problems. I really liked this kit and the level of detail is very high. In my opinion the way the have chosen to design the fuselage means there is a minimal amount of join lines to remove and it works well. I also have the Kinetic SuE and this is far more conventional in breakdown of parts, the fuselage is split in half and includes everything from the radome to the tail fin. This means a lot of join lines need to be removed and I find it odd Kinetic at least did not choose to offer a separate radome like Kittyhawk did. So basically, Kittyhawk´s offering is more complex to build but saves a lot of post-construction work.

 

Wings, wheel wells and air brakes are all very well moulded and fit very well too. Unlike the Kinetic offering, flaps can only be modelled down unless you do some serious cutting of parts, but it gives more life to the model so I did not mind.

 

I cannot really compare the Kittyhawk and Kinetic offerings of the SuE in detail, but let me say that the instructions of the former is superior! Kinetic does offer a very extensive decal sheet though, but Kittyhawk´s is certainly not bad.

 

Kjetil

[Mike]

Good feedback Kjetil, thanks   I've built a couple of KH's previous offerings, and as long as you keep your wits about you with test fitting and fettling, they usually go together just fine.  Cutting the parts off the sprues, applying glue and expecting a perfect fit is usually a bit of a risk with most manufacturers.

[Martian]

Sold to the Martian with no will power! Bugger, more expense, thanks Mike!

 

Martian (Failing woefully to resist)

[Mike]

Sorry matey

[Dudikoff]

Thought I didn't like the Etendards, but this kind of reminds me of the Yak-38 with that scheme and smaller nose (compared to SuE) making it just odd/ugly enough to look quite good  

 

Looks like a nice kit to boot. I'll certainly get one if I run into a good deal, thanks for the review.

[manuel]

On 25/01/2017 at 0:52 AM, Mike said:

• VM White 117 of Retirement Flotille 16F – gray/grey blue over light grey blue.
• IVM White 118 of Retirement Flotille 16F - gray/grey blue over light grey blue.
• IVM White 118 of Retirement Flotille 16F, 2000 - gray/grey blue over light grey blue, with a white streamer painted down the fuselage sides and a red arrow head on the nose.

The mark of the planes is erroneous in the KH plans.

The first three are IVP, the last two are IVM. 

Thanks for the review. For more pictures http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10436379/10/1

Manuel

Edited January 26, 2017 by manuel