Habu12

My eyes! But an enjoyable color shock. Diggin!

Academy 1/144 B-1B Lancer Box Packaging/Decals/Pubs: 8 Academy has greatly improved their boxart and configuration from its early days. Newer, better boxart, colorful sides and information is presented well. The decals are Cartograph, so no more poor registration issues. However, why Academy has switched to making the instructions in two booklets is beyond me. There is no reason for this. Or, if there is, I’d like to hear what excuse Academy gives. With one in color and one mostly monochrome. Sprues: 8 Also greatly improved are the sprues, which had no flash. Also the whole MCP multicolored plastic method, similar to Bandai is nice for those of us which don’t plan on painting the kit. Which is about less than 1%, I guesstimate. This wasn’t an issue until later. Shape: 9 As far as I can tell, there are no major shape issues. The only point taken away is for the scale, because some of the parts would have been far too small to recreate in 1/144. Subject/Cool Factor: 8 While the B-1B is part of the bomber triad, modern bombers aren’t at the top of the popularity ladder. Sure, B-17s and Lancasters are very popular, but this isn’t one of them. Also, the scale is a good and bad thing about this kit. While it’s small enough to hold in one palm, and it fits inside Detolf cabinets, a lot of detail is lost. Engineering: 9 Engineered to be a snap kit, it still maintains its lines, and the recessed panels aren’t too large. There were no major fit issues, except for those parts that don’t want to close up fully, which is common with snap kits. Since most of will glue them anyway, the issue resolves itself. BOX SCORE: 42 BUILD Fit: 9 No major issues here. The only spot that required extensive sanding were the engine nacelles. Not quite right up to par with the rest. And the snap fit issue discussed earlier. Detail: 8 Again, because of the scale, you don’t get all the detail you would with a 1/72 or 1/48 kit. But for what you do get, I had no problems with it. Effort: 9 Since this was designed as a snap kit, the ease of build was paramount. It went together in one night, and was ready for paint. Easy peasy. However, the multicolored plastic meant that the wheels were molded in black, not white. I wouldn’t have done it in reverse. Now I had to paint the hubs and the tires. Which is something most do anyway, but.... Value: 8 For such a small kit, it’s a bit more expensive than I thought it should be. $35 retail... that’s a bit much. But we know that a licensing fee is a good portion of that, so I can’t blame Academy wholly. Fun Factor: 9 Easy, fun, nice subject, what else? Easy to paint as well. I used Caracal decals for my build, since I wanted to build The Dark Knight. BUILD SCORE: 43 Add it all up and the D score is...85 out of 100 A solid B kit. It’s only let down by its scale, and snap fit engineering. Fun build!

OOB, Caracal decals. Write up coming shortly.

What a flight that was too. Imagine flying in a cramped radio compartment!

Hehe, thanks! Well, there's no big secret really. Just a lot of simple techniques built upon themselves. And doing it for 40 years helps :p

Diggin the dirt on this one.

Yup! My right arm sports a Senna S logo and a Stanley Cup logo with the Kings crown on top, where it belongs

You called it! It is indeed a stowed pitot tube.

Some paint notes: The bare metal section is all Alclad II. Magnesium, dark aluminum. And then just a whisk of some hot metal red, blue and purple. Then some hot metal sepia. After that I slightly weathered it with some Tamiya weathering makeup kits. the exhaust was also Alclad, jet exhaust. My ref pic showed this jet had the retrofitted F-102 burner. The rest of the fuselage, (since it was a silver lacquer in the 1:1 jet) was decanted Tamiya TS-17. My fave for replicating that, and you see why.

I’ve wanted to build this kit for a long time. I can’t believe I waited this long!

As a tribute to my recent trip to Seymour Johnson, and all the personnel past and present from there. I present to you a Hun from the 333rd, 9th FW, circa 1958. OOB, Super Scale decals.

Dirty! I love it!

Well, for now, it sits atop one of my Ikea Detolf cabinets

For the money, you can't beat it! Just a note on the ordnance, I just took an educated guess on the second Maverick and the GBU-12. I figured they'd want to balance the load a bit, and add another 500 lb. bomb on the port side, and GBU-12s were common. It may or may not have had that Maverick there, but I figured if you hang that heavy missile on one side... Plus, I didn't know what I'd do with the other missile anyway. And the ref pic I used showed that it only carried one AIM-9X and no AIM-120s.

His last championship car. I was pleasantly surprised by the fit of this kit. It did have a bit more flash than I’m used to though.

I don’t, really. I mean I have pics of it in the bench, but not hosted. It’s pretty big, but more than that it’s the heft. It weighs over five lbs!

Diggin this one! I've been wanting to do it for a long time. I have a family member that was in the squadron back then.

Revell 1:32 F-18E Super Hornet Box Packaging/Decals/Pubs: 8 The large box is reinforced on the bottom so it supports the 5+lbs of weight. The boxart is atrractive and shows a dynamic and colorful VX-9 bird swooping in. The sheer size of the box lends itself to hangable wall art, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do with it. I cut the box top and leaving it as is. It’s quite good looking. The decals are Revell’s own, which I believe may still be printed by Zanchett in Italy, which aren’t quite Cartograph, but still good. I only used some of them on this build anyway. The instruction sheet is full color, which is Revell’s new standard, and it doesn’t disappoint. Sprues: 7 And there are many. In the box, you can already tell there will be issues, for one simple reason-FLASH. And there’s lots of it! Too much for a modern kit. So much so, that the instruction sheet itself tells you to remove it. That’s two points off the score alone. That’s almost inexcusable. A modern kit like this should not only not have as much, but certainly not be instructed to remove it. Having said that, the large pieces of the fuselage and wing have beautiful surface detail. Panel lines are recessed well and consistently, and rivet detail is appropriately shallow. Perfect for the scale, and not overdone. Shape: 9 As far as I can tell, there are no major shape issues. The Super Hornet is a complex shape, and the parts breakdown reflects this, but in comparing to reference pics during the build nothing seemed too untoward or off. Subject/Cool Factor: 9 Once again, a popular, contemporary subject with plenty of variety. Yet with the Trumpeter kit already available, was it something sorely needed? More on that later. But Super Bugs are still quite popular. Engineering: 7 Despite the size and complexity, Revell did a fine job of engineering this subject. The parts breakdown lends itself well to not leaving many seams exposed, and that’s a very good thing..more on that shortly. BOX SCORE: 40 BUILD Fit: 6 Oy…where do I start? To put it into perspective, realize that this kit is about $90 retail, and available for about $80 from most stockists. See also, my engineering comments. Having said all that…The fit ranged from good to very good, but mostly on the lower end of that spectrum. Fit certainly was NOT excellent in any area of the build. Each subassembly had fit issues one way or another. A lot of shimming was used in places like the vertical stabs, forward fuselage, wing folds, front windscreen, and a few other odd places. The Intakes have canyons that you have to fill and will be a nightmare to do. If in fact you choose to od that. I felt it a waste of time, and didn’t touch the seams in the intakes. Youi actually don’t see much of it. I debated putting a cover on the intakes, but decided that was also a waste of time., Same with the exhausts. The only glaring, visible seams were at the rear quarters of the fuselage, and I did in fact give those some attention. The landing gear, while robust, had seams to fix everywhere. All over them. The nose gear required some piano wire to reinforce it. Here the engineering really let it down on structure. The fit really was more critical here, and they missed the mark. However…they did install well and do hold up the heavy model. The wing folds were also a pain, and ended up just cutting off the hinges. Unless you’re doing folded wings, they’re not critical to install. The other area that were let down was the flaperon hinges. Again, I didn’t even bother with the. They went on, and they hold the flaperons. Detail: 7 The cockpit detail is a bit soft, but there is a lot of it. And the decals do help bringing it out. It could use some aftermarket for sure, As well as the NACES seat. There’s detail there, but could certainly use more. The surface detail is again, a highlight of this kit. The landing gear, also has some good detail, but again, it still feels let down a bit. Especially since no metal reinforcement is included. This is a heavy 5 lb+ model and really needs some sort of reinforcement in the gear. The plastic gear holds up…but just barely. Effort: 7 While most of the build went mostly straightforward, almost no subassembly didn’t need some sort of shimming or slight modification to fit right. The effort required was rather discouraging at times. Granted this is a 1/32 scale model of a large fighter, but it does have a frame of reference that it should of a least used as an example of what TO do. Value: 9 And here we come to the crux of this kit…at roughly half the price of the Trumpeter kit, you can’t go wrong with it. This is exactly the kit you’d want if you just have to have a 1/32 scale Super Bug, but don’t want to play upwards $180 to get it. As a comparison, I did get a Trumpeter F-18F kit somewhat cheaply, so I can build it later and make a more comprehensive comparison. The Revell kit though does come with acomparable ordnance set, that does an admirable job. As for my build I chose to use Maverick missiles, as I saw in a reference pic. Those were aftermarket, but the AIM-9X, GBU-38s, and GBU-12 I used came right out of the box. Their fit was also good, but did need some work, and they have no thermal protection texture on them. For that, I used liquid cement, and a stiff brush to recreate it. Fun Factor: 8 Despite the issues, it was an enjoyable build, and it took a while to get used to and not marvel at the size of the aircraft in this scale. Now, if you’re a builder that loves to take kits that aren’t of Tamigawa quality and make them better, this is the kit for you. Half the price of the Trumpeter kit, and ripe for improvement. If like me, you don’t want to spend the time to fix everything, and make a presentable build, then you will get what you pay for. And that’s not a bad thing. BUILD SCORE: 37 Add it all up and the D score is…77 out of 100 A solid C. Again, for the money, the subject is hard to beat. It’s a fun build, but won’t win any contests unless a lot of effort is put into making a winner.

Oh yeah the colors looks great. And there is a fluorescent red, FS28913.

Fantastic! But uh...International Red? In TMM? Never seen or heard of it. Don’t you mean International Orange?

OOB, Furball decals. I’ll have the full write up tomorrow.

Enamel is the way to go. I don’t do acrylics

My go-to: Testors MM enamel and Alclad II for the metal areas.

If you read my take on the 1/48 F-15E kit, it all pretty much applies here. Except that this does come with the centerline pylon and the pod pylon.

I don’t like the GWH decals much, so I used the Caracal sheet for this one. Just as nice, if not nicer than the 1/48 kit.