RupertTheBear

I think I get where the whole thing is coming from after looking long enough at the sprues of the Academy kit. It's the parts breakdown in that area but for something that "glaringly obvious" being mentioned so sparsely, the discussion was rather overheated IMO. I trust your judgement on this as you mentioned you worked on the real deal, as well as built the Academy kit and frankly I can't wait for my new airbrush to arrive to begin the kit Just to end this derailment - I want to apologize for being partially responsible for this discussion, it was unintended.

That looks the business! Awesome Jug, I really like the weathering. Very convincing! 😍

Well in Germany the kit itself costs 45€ and resin engines go for around 30€ to 35€ after a quick search and I'm guessing in the end the GWH A-10 is going to cost 90€ to 95€ so it's a 15€ gap. Sure if you can correct the engines yourself (which I can't ) you are far better off.

That's not a bad price TBH. Yes it is a lot compared to Academy's offer and do you get two times as much plastic for it? Probably not, but I was expecting a price tag around and above 100 GBP. The breaking point of the kit will be the engines anyway. If they are correct straight out the box, the kit will be worth every cent. If you want to fix the Academy kit you end up in almost the same price bracket, counting in the needed aftermarket parts.

Neat! Both look promising. I keep hoping for a quarter scale Super Hind (whole kit or conversion set) So far only Hasegawa touched that subject in 1/72nd and it was a limited affair, so chances of getting one of these are slim.

Oh come on! I'm desperately waiting for it to be scaled down from 1/35th...but not that much!

The F35C is the highlight for me. Their B-Variant was a huge joy to build so I'm very much looking forward to that. The Tu-22M3 in 1/72 is interesting, although I'm guessing it's a re-release of their old kit. And the 1/48 Tiger helicopter intrigues me but that again is a case of accuracy. If it's based on their very old kit, which was based on the prototype Tiger IIRC, it might end up a mixed bag like Revell's Mirage 2000 - An old kit with some new parts added for a particular version. It will all depend on what "NEW" means instead of "100% NEW MOULDS"

Unless the Germans have some special requests for their F-35's like e.g. the drag chutes on Norways F-35A's, I'd say it should be fine. When it comes to camo and markings, a mock-up already exists if I'm not mistaken so the kit will probably go with that. Accurate kits of "on duty" aircraft with authentic markings/ numbers and maybe different camo schemes will have to wait until 2026 I guess.

If that's getting scaled down to 1/48th - Shut up and take my money! Looks tasty! Also looking forward already to people going berserk with "what-if" builds.

Neat! Finally a F-35C In 1/48th scale again. The A and B variant are a nice touch but others got them covered already.

Makes a lot of sense. Curious that seemingly quite a lot of KH kits found their way into stores now, about 3 years after KH went belly up. That practice is pretty much standard. A lot of manufacturers use old forms, like Revell still re-issuing old Monogram or Matchbox kits but all under the Revell brand and even recent molds are released by different manufacturers - Eduard using quite new Zvezda kits but with added bits and bobs from their own range, like resin parts. I never heard or saw kits getting restocked so long after the brand closed its doors and in pre-rebranded boxes, long after other manufacturers picked up the pieces. That seemed odd to me. That could be as well, especially when it shut down during Covid, like KH themselves, they had other issues on their mind back then. Unsold kits were quite low on the priority list.

Interesting wrinkle - I ordered a Kitty Hawk AH-6J/MH-6J kit last week. Super Hobby from Poland got a few boxes which seem to be all gone again by now. Just wondering - Is Kitty Hawk still going in some low volume capacity? Are these the last few kits with Kitty Hawk branding on them, that got ...don't know, lost in transit or were on hold because of Covid or anything? I noticed that e.g. Modellbau König from Germany got a few KH Seahawks in recently, for absurd money may I add, but still. The Little Bird kit was also to be released not only by Zimi Model, but by Storm Factory as well. Apparently, because I yet have to see both of them pop up around Germany. Just asking if anybody knows what's going on or if this, for me at least, confusing situation is rather normal when makers close doors or get taken over and I'm just missing something?

DAMN! That's a spectacular result!

Stunning result despite the decals not playing ball! Beautiful bird! Can't wait to see what you will do with your next Su-27

Also, if the renderings are anything to go by, it should be a new kit with the correct shape of the canopy, which was totally screwed up on the old MRC/Academy kit. That alone is a good reason for me to keep an eye on it.

I hope it's going to be a MiG-21-93 or an Indian Bison, something even Eduard hasn't touched while working their way through all other variants and markings on the planet. Surely the world doesn't need yet another MiG-21Bis kit, at least not in 1/48th or 1/72.

I'd say the effort was worth it, she's a beauty! 😍

That looks lovely, especially the wear and tear! The comparison with the Zero is also very interesting - you see many similarities between the two but also enough differences, so the Reppu isn't simply a scaled up Zero. Very cool!

That's one tasty looking Focke-Wulf 😍

Good choice Thank you!

People say, you can't hear photos - well...I actually hear a faint scream from those Soloviev engines Great finish and a very cool little diorama!

Thanks, Keith! I'm pleased with the color, too. Always liked yellow on cars but there are some odds shades out there. The Chrome Yellow is very pretty, though. I actually thought about magnets but I didn't go beyond the thought itself, so I didn't even know there are such small, yet powerful magnets out there. Thanks for the advice! 🙂 I recently had the opportunity to ride passenger in a Zonda F and I can confirm what you say The sound is incredible and I'm glad this time it wasn't a classic case of "Never meet your hero". The whole car simply is a work of art. The details, especially in the cockpit are out of this world. And I love that Pagani didn't go the way of Bugatti and Koenigsegg, always making the fastest something. I respect the engineering in a Chiron, but loving it or dreaming about it? Nah 😅 That said, the Zonda is not some kitcar, it is a really well engineered and beautifully put together. It just doesn't go the "look at us, we made a 2000HP, 500KPH family sedan" way, and I like that. 🙂

Thank you! Thanks for reading through it all, hope I didn't bore the hell out of you 😄 Yeah, me too. Always had a soft spot for the Harrier, especially the bulkier Harrier II but I'm currently looking to get one of Kinetic's Harriers. Either the GR3 or the Sea Harrier FA2, can't have both sadly. Need more space first.

Thanks, mate! The color was actually the most tricky part, I couldn't decide 😅 At first I wanted to go with Lamborghini's Verde Ithaca but that's hard to come by.

Good day everyone, in the wake of the F-35B Lightning I managed to finish earlier this year, I stumbled across an old kit I love for different reasons and unlike in the real world, the Lightning won't replace this one on my shelf but rather park next to it. It's the well known Hasegawa kit in 1/48th scale of the Harrier II Plus and it had a rather troubled story in my hands. It took me 11 years to finish this, believe it or not. Most of the time it sat in hiatus half built in its box because my old compressor had given up the ghost in the process. I started this kit while I was in school, which also kinda interrupted my model making. Graduation, the first job, the first love, then studying, other hobbies along the way, so something had to give. Finally after many years of absence I bought a new compressor in 2016, dug up the Harrier and got it done. This was also a kit of many firsts - The first multi colored kit with a camo pattern I tried with airbrush, the first time I used a detail set, the first time I tried to replicate bigger decals by using them as a template and airbrushing them, the first time I tried weathering and back in the day it was the first item I ever ordered online 😄. The result, of course, doesn't do the mighty Harrier any justice but I love the aircraft and because it took so long for the kit to be finished and what happened in the meantime, I love this kit. What amazes me, I forgot what I had for breakfast today, but I remember the whole build. So the story begins in late 2006 (The exact date I actually only know because I found the receipt still in the box). My brother and I were browsing on the web for modelling stuff and ordered the Hasegawa Harrier plus the Hasegawa USAF weapons set and a resin cockpit from Aires. As soon as everything arrived, I immediately begun construction. I remember being frightened by the use of superglue for the resin parts because I didn't want to mess things up so early into the build 😅 All went well, though, until the cockpit section and the rear fuselage needed to be joined together. The well know fitment issues there were also a source of frustration for young Luke. But with a bit of putty and some swearwords, it went together somehow. The rest of the build wasn't bad at all. With most of the construction done I started painting. I remember I used Revell Email airbrush colors, which I think got discontinued at some point. I managed to get the first two shades of grey onto the kit, then airbrush the vertical stabilizer by cutting out the big decals and using them as masks, then the compressor decided he's done with my s**t 😅 Being still at school and not exactly flush with cash I couldn't afford a new compressor at the time and so the Harrier got mothballed. The years passed, my brother moved away, we moved house, too, my father retired, etc....crazy how much stuff happened, while the kit sat quietly in its box, which itself got lost in the back of my closet at some point. Finally after almost 10 years I got a new compressor (ironically while visiting my brother in Poland, so he somehow put it all in motion and spiritually helped me bring it to an end) and got back to model building. I got a few kits finished before going back to this one. The last shade of grey was airbrushed, all the smaller parts were glued in place, the ordnance from the Hasegawa weapons set was added, then the decals went on, which got really brittle over time. Then I tried to weather the aircraft with acrylics and in the end everything got sealed with semi gloss varnish. Apart from the one big fitment issue I remember the build being utterly enjoyable, this includes the Aires cockpit. I'm also quite pleased with the result for so many firsts and tries. In some aspects I find it better in some aspects than some of my more recent kits, which worries me 😅 Of course for the balance of things, in other aspects it's worse but overall I quite like it. I hope you do, too and as always, thanks for watching (and reading through my probably boring story 😄 ) Cheers