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STROP

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Posts posted by STROP

  1. @ Fulcrum@ :  In my experience  the KP  kit  is  just a little easier to build than the Heller/Revell , but  it needs more care to check/correct  the fitting  of the parts before glueing, . ( I cannot compare with the Airfix/Heller kit) .  

     

    @David K. :  The KP contains basic representations of the Stencel S-III ejection seats  used on the German & Portuguese Alpha Jet A .  Could be replaced by the Pavla resin S72042.

     

    The French and Belgian Alpha Jet E  had Martin Baker Mk4  in the beginning ( as far as can verify )  and  later Mk10 seats after upgrading.  These are not in the KP kit,  but there are good resin replacements by PJ Production and Pavla. And there are some differences on the top of the seats between the front and the back position.

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  2. 16 hours ago, Fulcrum@ said:

    We can wait a true good kit, now...not the Kp...

    https://www.master194.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=119527

     

     

    On this French forum two modelers share their experience of building the KP kit, and most of the comments are rather negative about the kit. I dislike most of the comments as the language is often rude and bitter, but what do these  modellers expect ?

    Waiting for a new and better kit is no option if you want to build an AJ on 1/72. The existing kits by the trio Airfix, Heller, Revell are more than 40 years old, and they did not care to improve them or to replace them in the last decade.

    It is  highly unlikely that any of the other main manufacturers will issue a new  state-of-the-art kit of the Alpha Jet as the only way to make money with a entirely new kit is  to select a popular subject  such as the C-130 of Zvezda.

    If there was a large market for a 1/72nd Alpha Jet, why is it not there, e.g.  made by Heller ?  Even Mach2, the French shortrun manufacturer did not care to produce it.

    The easest way to generate cash-flow is to re-issue old kits with new decals in a new box. This is what most companies do, as well as KP , who reboxed last year the Heller Alouette III with new decals.

    But if you want a lesser known subject, then you have to wait for a smaller manufacturer,  and the only one who suprises us more than once a year is Special Hobby.

    This is also a small Czech firm but larger than KP and  apparently better equipped.  They produce original kits with a quality  comparable to that of the larger companies.

    Their kits are often praised in in-box reviews, but not so easy to build in reality. I experienced problems with their SF260 and Fouga Magister kits but nothing unsurmountable.

    Last year, there was some friction between Special Hobby and KP  as they both produced almost simultaneously similar kits, like the SIAI SF260 , Spitfire and Me109 variants. This was just plain stupid as they were eating each others market share. Hopefully there is now some understanding between them to avoid that kind of competition, but that would mean that we should not wait for a SH version of the Alpha Jet.

    So what can you expect of the KP Alpha Jet ?

    It is surely inspired by the older Airfix/Heller offerings but not a copy. There could be an issue of  accuracy, but the available information (scale drawings , e.a. ) is contradictory, so we cannot blame KP for that. It certainly looks like an Alpha Jet.

    The kit can be build without major problems, with the usual care required for short run kits, i.e careful trimming, dry fitting and adjusting pieces when necessary before glueing.  Putty is necessary for some joints. The decals offer attractive schemes, but they are very delicate.

    The most obvious imperfections are :  poor landing gear, the E-nose is not entirely correct, very little detail for the cockpit,  the ejection seats are for the A version only. Easiest improvement is to use resin ejection seats of Pavla or PJ production.

    Is the KP kit expensive at a price of 15 to 20 Euro ? Yes , if you compare it with the Zvezda C-130H priced around 40 to 45 Euro / £ .  No, if you compare it with what is asked on Ebay for the old Airfix /  Heller / Revell  and for resin kits of similar jet planes.

    If you want to build NOW an Alpha Jet in 1:72nd scale, buy the kit and use your skills to improve it.

    If you just think of it as a possible subject, then you can wait for a better kit or an improvement set, maybe sometimes in the future you may be lucky.

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  3. 2 hours ago, komoras said:

    https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=20363&p=albums&album=78855&view=list

     

    Here is a nice comparison build, between KP and a Heller kit.

    Thanks for looking at my album. I have not finished yet my build, and I am considering 3D printed replacements for the landing gear as well as some extra detail in the cockpit behind the ejection seats.

    KP could have made a much more attractive kit if they had corrected the landing year, which looks like a copy of the heller/Revell kit and if they provided alternative  ( e.g. Martin Baker) ejection seats for the French & Belgian edition of the kit.

    I wonder if Artscalekit would provide these in there announced versions of the KP kit.

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  4. There is no reason why the Belgian Gladiators should have had blue painted rudders; the only colors applied on the rudders were the national flag and even that was deleted when the planes got the kakhi camouflage. And blue makes no sense either in connection with the Comet Squadron, and no other aircraft type had "coloured" rudders. I do not know of any Belgian source that mentions the blue rudders, it seems definitely a (wrong) interpretation of b/w pictures. 

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  5. I found 3 models of the Alpha Jet in my collection, which I have built years ago. Man, they look awful, the varnish I used  has  yellowed considerably.  Two of them are  the  Heller/ Revell kit  with the short dog-tooth.  The third one is the Airfix one,  but I see no difference in the  dog-tooth with the other one, and I see no self-made correction on the wing.

     

    But I found the following information by comparison of the photos , instructions , etc.

     

    1.  Heller produced around 1980  a kit  with 4 sprues , based on the prototype. It can be identified  by  the complicated split up at the exhausts,  the upper and lower parts of the wings have the same size  and there are no pilots in the kit.  The kit has raised panel lines, but no indication of the air brakes. It has been marketed in several boxes , with a GERMAN  Alpha Jet as illustration.  This kit has also be marketed by Revell  as  Alpha Jet A with a length of  18,1 cm and GERMAN markings , and as Alpha Jet E with a length of  16,7 cm  with FRENCH markings.

     

    2. Airfix produced about the same time a kit with 3 sprues.  It can be identified by the short exhaust pipes , it has a dissimilar split of upper and lower parts of the wings, and  there are pilots in the kit. 

    It has been marketed by Airfix  originally  with a GERMAN Alpha Jet on the box and decals for a German and the Belgian AT-02.  It has been re-issued in 2008 with a BRITISH  Alpha Jet on the box and decals for a Qinetic  A and a Belgian E, code  AT-03.   

    This kit has also be marketed by Heller with the same  number  as the other one, but with FRENCH  markings  (Patrouille de France). The instructions in these boxes are the same as for the Airfix kit.

     

    3. Scale Aviation Modeller  December 2009  published  a Modellers Profile (No 29)  of the Alpha Jet, with 1/72nd scale drawings  made by  Bradic Srecko,  which are clearly  the references  KP  used for its kit, as  the kit parts  fit  perfectly  the drawings.  The drawings show the wing dog tooth  of the production planes. Unfortunately, Bradic made an error in the length of the planes , measured on the drawing as 16,1 cm for the E , which corresponds to 11,59 m in reality, while on the profile data sheet 12,28 m is given.  The error lays entirely at the rear part, aft of the exhausts. 

     

    The older Airfix / Heller / Revell  kits  are almost impossible to find now.  The  alternative is now the KP kit  with  it  (4 mm? ) too short tail.  

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  6. No, the dog- teeth position of the Heller complies with the drawing, on the KP kit is 4mm larger towards the fuselage. Should be /  can be correcter.  On the other hand the Heller wing is 2.2 mm thick, which is too thin compared with the dwg , the KP wing is 2.6 mm thick, that is more realistic.

     

    Btw I bought the German version and it has a rather complete decals sheet for 3 versions.

     

     

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  7. Last weekend, I could buy the new  KP kit at the IPMS Belgium National Convention in Affligem for  some 15 Euro. 

    For me , it is a reasonable kit with engraved panel lines, comparable with those on the latest Airfix Harrier kit.

    It has the usual large sprue connections of KP kits, (which have to be removed , but this should not be a problem for the average modeller) ;  no connection pins either, but  the parts align well when dry fitted.

     

    I compared the kit parts with the scaleable drawing  on Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dassault-Dornier_Alphajet.svg which I think is correct  and with the parts of the Heller / Revell kit  which I had in my stash.

    That older kit (which is difficult to find anyway) has raised panel lines and landing lights in the wings, but is dimensionally  correct.  The foreward fuselage of the KP and Heller kits are very similar, but the tail part  of the KP kit is some 4 mm  shorter than the Heller and the drawing !  It is practically impossible to correct this, however I wonder if it will stand out, once the kit is built.  The wings are basically identical, there are differences between both kits for the fuel tanks and the cannon pod, but I haven’t verified these.  

    The Heller kit has a complicated split up for the underside and engine outlets with 3 parts, the KP solution is much easier to build.  

     

    The KP kit contains nose cones for the 3 versions  A, E and MS,  and the nose streaks of the E versions moulded with the fuselage sides.  Unfortunately, these nose streaks are too short for the E versions,  which explains why the nose looks too long in the test build, and they are absent on the A version. They should be removed in both cases , and replaced by some plasticard streaks of the right size for the E versions.

     

    The KP kit has only a  basic representation of the Sentrel ejection seats of the German / Portuguese planes, which need improvement (or should be replaced by Pavla resin seats).  The old Heller has even coarser representations of Martin Baker  seats (for the E version) but here one can find good resin MB Mk10 seats made by PJ Production.

     

    If you can live with the “short” tail,  I think the KP kit is a good basis for a decent Alpha jet in 1/72 , a modeler with some experience  can easily make the other desired corrections / improvements.

     

    KP  intends to bring out the kit with other decals (also Belgians) somewhere in december 2021.   

    • Like 5
  8. Having Built both the KP and SH kits of the SF260 , I would like to give here my experience with both.

    The KP kit(s) came out first  and is in my opinion a reasonable short run kit. The sprues in the kit are the same for all the kits and offer a choice of engines and propellers. This has its implication in the parts split up.

     Yes, the sprue connections are quite thick and must be removed, but that is not an impossible task for the average modeller.

    Although it has decals for a Belgian plane, the KP kit has not the back seat bench of the Belgian SF260.  It should come from the spare box.  The dashboard  of the kit is not fantastic,  I used a spare of the SH kit. Once completed and painted, the difference with the SH kit is barely visible.

    The SH kit(s) have a higher quality molding with larger sprues and more bits and pieces, it looks better in the box, and being sold for about the same price as KP offer better value for money, but is not a kit that can easily be built OOB.  There is a choice of dashboards and other bits,  which can be confusing.

    SH  has a tendency for over-engineering and this kit is no exception, making things complicated, such as the split between the propeller and its axle . The rudder pedals are “nice to have” little parts, but invisible once the fuselage is closed.

    The proposed way to build the kit is not the best . For example there instructions indicate to glue the dashboard to cockpitfloor.  It is easier to glue the dashboard to the fuselage instead. The cockpitfloor and the bulkheads parts B1, B2, B4 . are about 0.5 mm too wide and should be sanded a bit to fit easily in the fuselage. Otherwise the fuselage sides will not fit in the upper wing.  It is also much easier to glue the cockpitfloor on the wing than to glue it into the fuselage as instructed.  The wheel bay ajustment  can be done more easily by sanding away the excess plastic in the fuselage.

    Dry fitting is necessary before joining fuselage and wing, as there are some points such as the bottom sides of the bulkheads which are in the way of a smooth fit, but that can be solved with some cutting and sanding.

    They integrated the beacon (?)  under the plane in the wing part, but the SF260M did not have this. Sanding it away makes a hole in the wing to be filled with putty. It would be easier if they had povided a separate piece for this bump.

    There is plenty of place in the nose for lead to avoid a tailsitter.

    The decals of both the KP and the SH are very thin and delicate and have a tendency to coil. Better buy at least two kits to have a spare decal sheet.

    The second SH kit  72433 offers the “high canopy” version.  I measured the two canopies: there is 07.mm difference in height. Nice idea of SH , but barely visible  when you put the two  together.

    The ( PE ) wing fences are not present on the Belgian SF260D  (as instructed in the kit).

    I do not have a Flickr account to upload pictures,  but I have documented my builds in a scalemates album :  https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=20363&p=albums&album=66079#13

    • Like 6
  9. Thank you .  Indeed , dry fitting and some sanding is necessary .  The nose section is another area where I did not follow their instructions. I glued the two parts to the fuselage halves , instead of  making the nose separately.  And I send an e-mail to Special Hobby , suggesting that they should provide a one-piece replacement part  for the middle section of the canopy. 

     

    Erik

    • Like 1
  10. When you print on white decal paper , you should color the surrounding of your design with the background color of your model. On encyclopedia.com you can find the Hex code of most model paints. When you use this code for  defining the background color on your print, you will get a good match with the painted model.

    And there is a guy in Holland who can print white and color on decal sheet : printmetwit.nl . The only "disadvantage", is that you need to fill an A4 sheet with your design.

     

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