Trumpeter PLA JL-9 Plateau Eagle. 1:48

[Shar2]

PLA JL-9 Plateau Eagle
Trumpeter 1:48

JianLian-9 (JL-9) is an advance trainer or light attack aircraft designed and manufactured by the Guizhou Aircraft Industry Corporation (GAIC) of China. The aircraft was designed for the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force (PLANAF). The JL-9 was designed by modifying the JJ-7 aircraft. The modifications included redesigning the forward fuselage and incorporating a FIAR Grifo S7 pulse-doppler fire-control radar in the solid nose radome. It was designed to carry either three drop tanks of 480l capacity or two 480l and one 720l capacity drop tanks under the wings and fuselage. It can cope with a flight envelope of +8g and -3g.

The aircraft features an in-flight refuelling probe on the starboard side of the front fuselage section to accomplish air refuelling missions even in the worst climatic conditions. It is fitted with double-delta wings to render additional space for fuel capacity and raise the aircraft's angle of attack. The JL-9 was built to suit the desperate requirements of the PLAAF for a new trainer aircraft to match its new generation fighters in aerodynamic performance and avionics suite. The aircraft is being used to train pilots flying fourth-generation aircraft such as Chengdu J-10, Sukhoi Su-27SK, Sukhoi Su-30MKK and Shenyang J-11. The intention to develop the JL-9 was unveiled by GAIC during the China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition held in 2001. To reduce development costs and time, GAIC built the JL-9 by modifying the JJ-7 aircraft, which was derived from the Soviet MiG-21U Mongol fighter trainer.

The first JL-9 prototype took its maiden flight in December 2003. The aircraft was listed in the PLAAF's 11th five-year procurement plan in June 2005, according to Chinese newspapers. A total of five production JL-9s entered service with PLAAF in 2006. An advanced version of the JL-9 equipped with a stability control augmentation system and a microwave landing system was examined in 2006. On completion of technology certification testing in September 2006, it entered into series production for PLAAF and PLANAF. Another version of the aircraft, incorporated with a tail hook, underwent flight testing in January 2011. Its export version is designated as FTC-2000 (Fighter Trainer-2000) Mountain Eagle (Shanying).

The kit comes in an attractive top opening box with a slightly impressionistic painting of the aircraft on the lid. Inside there are eight sprues of medium grey styrene, one sprue of clear styrene, a small sheet of etched brass and a medium sized decal sheet. Naturally, as we have come to expect from modern kits, there is no sign of flash or other imperfections and only a few moulding pips, so clean up of parts should be pretty easy. All the parts are well moulded with very finely recessed panel lines, fasteners and raised areas where required. This isnt a complex kit by any stretch of the imagination, although nicely detailed, a lot of parts that would sometimes be moulded separately, have been included as part of the main moulds, such as the fuselage halves. This includes items like the three rod aerials on the fin tip, which are protected by a simple sprue extension, so try not to break them off during the build.

Talking of the build, it does start with the cockpit. The single piece tub includes both front and rear cockpits, into which the respective bulkheads are fitted, each one being moulded complete with the ejection seat rails. The rear instrument panel, with decal instruments is fitted just aft of the front cockpit bulkhead, followed by the fitting of the two, two piece ejection seats, with each seat get further detail in the form of PE harnesses. The front instrument panel is fitted with the coaming, three piece HUD and instrument panel decal before being attached to the front cockpit. The two side walls also have decal instrument panels before being glued into position forming a pretty sturdy tub.

Whilst you do get a complete engine, it is rather small, and you certainly wont see much once its installed. It is made up from two halves with the front fan and guide vane ring fitted inside the front section before the halves are closed up. The front is then fitted with an intake ring, whilst at the rear the nozzle and an outer ring are attached. The nose wheel well is then assembled from three parts are fitted with the nose wheel oleo, two part wheel and the separate left hand section of the wheel yoke. Each of the main wheel bays are also assembled at this point, each from four parts. Once assembled the main bays are fitted into their respective holes in the fuselage halves, the nosewheel well into one half, along with the engine and cockpit assemblies before the fuselage is closed up.

The intakes are glued to their separate splitter plates, and then glued to the fuselage sides, along with a large intake on the port side rear, a smaller intake just aft of that, also with one on the opposite side of the fuselage and six aerials. The two halves of each wing are joined together as are the two halves of each horizontal tailplane before also being attached to the fuselage. The nosecone is then fitted, (with suitable weight to stop the model being a tail sitter), along with the pitot probe. Each main undercarriage is made up from a single piece oleo, two piece wheel, scissor link, brake hose and the outer bay door. These are then glued into position along with their retraction actuators. The nosewheel bay doors are fitted, along with a couple of aerials just foreward of the bay and the refuelling probe to righ of the front windscreen. The clear parts are exceptionally clear and once the windscreen and mid section are attached to the fuselage the two canopies can be posed either open or closed.

The main wheel doors and their actuators are now attached, as are two more intakes, these are situated on the underside of the fuselage adjacent to the wing trailing edge. The four weapons pylons are then fitted two to each wing and the two large ventral strakes glued under the tail. The kit comes with two pairs of AAMs, PL-8s and PL-9s, and a couple of long range tanks. Each missile is made up of single piece body and seeker head and with separate front and rear wings, whilst the tanks are moulded in two halves. The missiles also come with a nice selection of stencils. Once the missiles and tanks have been assembled there is a table in the instructions of what can be carried where, and that is pretty much it, just painting and decaling completes the build.

Decals
The colourful decal sheet is very well printed, in register and nicely opaque. There are only two choices of colour scheme included, and none of the colourful ones seen on the net. One is overall silver with red identification numbers , whilst the other is overall light grey, with yellow numbers, both have green dielectric panels and a black nose cone. What Trumpeter do provide is a full set of stencils, naturally in Chinese.

Conclusion
This is pretty much the first time I have heard of this aircraft, and on first inspection if seemed to be a amalgam of a number of different aircraft, which made it seem familiar. Its quite a pretty aircraft, and quite simple, as per the kit, which would make it a nice diversion from something more complicated, or a mojo boosting build after a lay off. There some more interesting colour schemes out there, so some enterprising decal manufacturer may take up the baton, which will make for an even more interesting subject in the collection.

Review sample courtesy of
UK Distributors for

[Basosz]

"People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force" <-- everything about that name is just wrong

Cool looking plane though, thanx for the review

[Will Vale]

That's rather an attractive looking thing, thanks for the review. Are you sure it can hover though?

Will

[Shar2]

Well spotted, nice to know you read the whole review Will.

[Antoine]

Thanks Dave,

Interesting, as always.

[andym]

"People's Liberation Army Naval Air Force" <-- everything about that name is just wrong

Cool looking plane though, thanx for the review

Just be aware folks that the naval version has a bigger wing, larger stabs, strengthened u/c, no underfuselage strakes, an arrestor hook and several other changes. The kit can only be built as a PLAAF one.

HTH

Andy

[rbeach84]

Just got myself a copy of this kit and offer these brief observations:

There is duplication of the horizontal stabs on the sprue with the engine parts ('W' sprue) as well as dupes of the nose and landing gear legs if not the wheels (apparently, only the engine parts are needed from that sprue.) The horizontal stabs indicated in the instructions are the one piece items on sprue "B" & differ from the 2-part items by having a 'clipped' trailing edge inner corner and larger 'counter balances'. Also, there are (as seen in the images) a few extra, unidentified AAM types other than the PL-8/ PL-9 missiles which look like Sparrow & Sidewinder variants. The box top shows everything "hanging down" but those options are not provided. The canopy parts are also not provided with the open position hold-struts though easily added from scratch - in fact, the open position is not indicated in the instructions, but they open sideways to starboard per the box top art (oddly, the hold-struts are at the front instead of the rear.)

Looking at the decal sheet, the red & yellow colors on my copy are a bit 'spotty' so they may suffer from some bleed through of the under color. However, since that is likely to be light gray, that may not be an issue. Lots of nice stenciling in Chinese printed in red & blue per the 'Russian' style. The general shapes look okay (for a change!) though one area I have yet to decide on is the forward nose which incorporates a bit of 'flattening' in front of the intakes that blends into the round radar cone contour. I *think* it is okay, but it is subtle - more study is needed but overall it looks quite good & not overly complex. The seats are even well done (for one-part pieces), accomplished using a multi-part mold to include side details.

Just pay attention to how the sprues come out of the box - it is tricky getting in all back in!

Regards, Robert