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Soviet Su-11 Fishpot 1:48


Mike

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Soviet Su-11 Fishpot
1:48 Trumpeter


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The Sukhoi Su-11 was part of the rapid development of jet fighters after WWII and was developed from the Su-9, which we reviewed here not so long ago. It was meant to be an improvement, but despite a bigger engine and radar, it was still heavily reliant on ground control to find their targets, and had only limited interception capability, carrying two R-98 missiles and having no cannons.

Only around a hundred were built, and they were quickly phased out in favour of other models, to be left standing in museums with a few exceptions that soldiered on into the 80s.


The Kit
Following on from the Su-9 reviewed by my colleague recently, the new kit shares very little in the way of sprues with the older one, although the cockpit parts have been copied and pasted directly from the CAD files for the earlier kit. A set of additional fuel thanks have also been included that are shared between the two aircraft. The kit arrives in a standard box with a painting of the eponymous contents on the top, five sprues in mid-grey styrene, a small clear sprue and a decal sheet, plus the instruction booklet in landscape A4, and separate colour painting guide on two sides of A4.

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Although it bears a resemblance to its forebear, all the exterior parts are different, even if only subtly so in cases. The common cockpit is first in the construction process, and has a reasonable level of detail plus a decal for the main instrument panel. The ejection seat is slide-moulded to incorporate most of the detail in the main part, with only two additional parts required to finish it off. The exhaust trunking is next, with a styrene afterburner ring and engine face, which appears to be the wrong way round, as it faces the font of the aircraft, leaving anyone looking up the exhaust tube seeing its back face through the burner ring. To be honest, it's unlikely anything will be seen from either the nose or the tail, in fairness. The nose gear bay is built from individual panels, and traps the detailed gear leg in place in holes in the side walls, so it can't be left off until later. With the addition of the radome, which is built up from a cylindrical rear and tapered cone, the fuselage can be closed up, and a pair of main bay inserts added to the sides of the fuselage.

The delta-wings of the Fishpot are wafer-thin, so the gear bay roof detail is moulded into the upper wing, and the flying surfaces are all mobile, so can be posed at your whim, but don't forget to drill out the holes for the pylons if you plan on using them. The main gear legs have separate pivot lugs and retraction jacks, and are topped off with two-part wheels and two captive gear-bay covers, although these can be left off until after painting. The wings attach to roots on the fuselage via the traditional tab and slot method, with three in total per wing to help get the very slight anhedral of the real thing. The large fin is attached to the aft fuselage by a pair of pins, and the elevators fit with just one pin each on a nicely detailed fairing.

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The most obvious difference between the Su-9 and Su-11 is the long external fuel pipe fairing that runs over the wingroot on the port side, with another on the underside, both of which are supplied as separate parts. A couple of auxiliary intakes are added to both sides of the aft fuselage, and the two-part canopy is placed over rather flat and featureless coaming and turtle-deck behind the pilot, which isn't at all how it should look. The clear parts are very nicely done however, with crystal clear glazing, and a satin patina to the metal frames and fairings. This is probably a cockpit that is best left closed unless you wanted to add some detail to these areas.

The Fishpot usually carried a pair of R-98 Anab missiles, one of each of the semi-active radar (MR) and infrared (MT) seeker types, to give it the best chance of bringing down its chosen target. Unfortunately, only the former type has been included, so if you wanted to show an accurate load, you would need to shorten one of the missiles and round the tip to accommodate the infrared seeker lens. A pair of fuel tanks are also included that hang side-by-side from the belly between the main gear legs.

The underside of the nose is dotted with a few additional sensors, the slender nose gear bay covers, and flipping the kit over, the long pitot probe is slid into a recess in the nose that has a delicate fairing moulded-in.


Markings
The Su-11 flew in a protective coat of aluminium lacquer, so it's any colour as long as it's silver, and do check your references before you decide whether to vary the panel colours to add a little extra interest, as this effect varied with the age of the paint. There are two options from the box, and as usual with Trumpeter, they give you precious little background information. From the box you can build either red 14, or blue 10, both of which share the same national markings and a few stencils on the rear of the fuselage.

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Decals are printed in-house, and register, colour density and sharpness seem good, but the blue of Blue 10 seems a little purple in tone. Fishpots weren't renowned for wearing fun and interesting schemes however, so it won't get much more fun than the kit decals.

Conclusion
This is a curious kit, which has some areas that are nicely done, while the finishing of the cockpit leaves a little to be desired. With care and painted sympathetically, it should look great in your cabinet.

Review sample courtesy of
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Or maybe the guy who built the model for display sanded them down before attaching them ?

Mikes Review...The most obvious difference between the Su-9 and Su-11 is the long external fuel pipe fairing that runs over the wingroot on the port side, with another on the underside

Apologies if I am misunderstanding you Mike, but if you mean the fuselage fairings that Laurent is talking about, they are wiring conduits, not fuel pipes.

They are on the upper fuselage offset from the centreline.

Unless you mean something different?

Ken

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  • 5 weeks later...

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