Kitty Hawk's 1/48th Scale Su-22M-3 & M-4

[Dudikoff]

I only watched the closing thoughts part, but given all the fuzz I wasn't bothered by his straight approach at all. What I was bothered with are some kit issues, especially the pylons which apparently have to be shaped to fit the wings not unlike on the old OEZ kit.

 

For the price, that would have been completely unacceptable so thanks for posting the review before I got carried away and ordered one. I guess it's another KH kit I'll skip, unfortunately.

[Laurent]

I've received the KH kit Saturday and started building it.

The concave under fuselage profile issue first noticed in the paint & decal directions is there:

The reason is that the middle fuselage cross-section has a weird shape: circular top, elliptical bottom. The reinforcement strips emphasize this:

I sawed a slit (avoiding panel lines as much as possible) and plan to insert plastic card in it to obtain a more circular fuselage cross-section at the middle.

Looks better. Clean up time.

 

 

Edited February 26, 2017 by Laurent
Update

[exdraken]

That is quite some brave cut Laurent!!

Any other observation?  Do you have plans to put it against?

Thanks for showing!

Cheers!

[Laurent]

54 minutes ago, exdraken said:

Any other observation?  Do you have plans to put it against?

One thing after another Werner: I have to do the other fuselage half now.

The issue is a fixable basic shape issue. No need for plans to see the middle fuselage is cylindrical: http://russianplanes.net/id205038

 

[ABeck]

On 26/02/2017 at 19:39, Laurent said:

I've received the KH kit Saturday and started building it.

The concave under fuselage profile issue first noticed in the paint & decal directions is there:

 

The reason is that the middle fuselage cross-section has a weird shape: circular top, elliptical bottom. The reinforcement strips emphasize this:

 

I sawed a slit (avoiding panel lines as much as possible) and plan to insert plastic card in it to obtain a more circular fuselage cross-section at the middle.

 

Looks better. Clean up time.

 

 

 

Thanks , phantastic idea !

Had glued the fuselage puzzle yesterday and was about to cut along the panel line below the mould joint line you used. I would have cut the extracted lower fuselage section into pieces and glued them on a solid plastic Strip, then filled and sanded it and then re-attached it to the fuselage.

 

The remaining problem are the awful sink holes on the weapon carriers.

 

All the Best from Charlottengrad

Edited February 27, 2017 by Greg B
Needlessly repeated images removed....

[Muzz]

I'm still not convinced the shape is that wrong to merit surgery.

[Laurent]

14 minutes ago, Muzz said:

I'm still not convinced the shape is that wrong to merit surgery.

I did that because this fix is relatively easy and quick to do. In the end it isn't really important because once the model is built, on its landing gear, with the pylons, the bottom of the fuselage won't be very visible.

Fixing the HB probably won't be easy though. 

Edited February 26, 2017 by Laurent

[ICMF]

Wouldn't that make the fuselage cross-section *more* wrong. though?  You're pushing it down under the wing, but that will naturally twist at the ends of the cuts, which will just make that area under the wing flatter.

 

Seems like a simple keel or bulkheads to push down the middle of the belly would be a simpler/more accurate solution.  And shouldn't be too hard to make: you can measure the amount of arc in the belly, which will give you the amount you need to add to the bottom of your bulkheads.  Or just cut a straight, rectangular keel from some thick sheet styrene that extends from the front to the back of the arc.  Not unlike building a vac kit or scratchbuild, it should push the belly down do a straight line.

[Calum]

2 hours ago, Laurent said:

I did that because this fix is relatively easy and quick to do. In the end it isn't really important because once the model is built, on its landing gear, with the pylons, the bottom of the fuselage won't be very visible.

Fixing the HB probably won't be easy though. 

Doogs online review convinced me not to buy the KH kit. The nose being the biggest issue for me.

 

What's wrong with the HB kit? I didn't realise it was out. For me, It would have to be pretty bad for it to be worse than the KH one

Edited February 27, 2017 by Calum

[Laurent]

9 hours ago, ICMF said:

Wouldn't that make the fuselage cross-section *more* wrong. though?  You're pushing it down under the wing, but that will naturally twist at the ends of the cuts, which will just make that area under the wing flatter.

 

Seems like a simple keel or bulkheads to push down the middle of the belly would be a simpler/more accurate solution.  And shouldn't be too hard to make: you can measure the amount of arc in the belly, which will give you the amount you need to add to the bottom of your bulkheads.  Or just cut a straight, rectangular keel from some thick sheet styrene that extends from the front to the back of the arc.  Not unlike building a vac kit or scratchbuild, it should push the belly down do a straight line.

Inserting spacing rods would make the fuselage locally a little narrower as the perimeter would remain the same without no added plastic. And the multi-part fuselage reinforcement strips make the structure more rigid. Perhaps it could be good enough though. Try it !

Keel addition would really fix the issue but it would mean scribing. I feel lazy.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Laurent

[Laurent]

5 hours ago, Calum said:

The nose being the biggest issue for me.

Absence of intake splitters ? If so I intend to make templates for cutting plastic card.

 

5 hours ago, Calum said:

What's wrong with the HB kit? I didn't realise it was out. For me, It would have to be pretty bad for it to be worse than the KH one

Su-17UM3 test-build photos have been posted. It's highly unlikely that HB will modify these. The markings profile can be assumed to be based on CAD and they are coherent with the shapes of the test-build. In top view the windscreen sides base is almost straight while the front should be curved. This implies that the front isn't wide enough and as a consequence, in side view, the windscreen doesn't "go into"/"wrap around" the nose. In other words, windscreen is somewhat similar in shape to early Su-17/Su-20. Same issue as the KP kit. Fixing this would require a correction set. See the relevant BM topic for more infos.

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by Laurent

[dragonlanceHR]

Laurent, I salute you. Brilliant fix.

 

Vedran

[Laurent]

38 minutes ago, dragonlanceHR said:

Laurent, I salute you. Brilliant fix.

 My god is Murphy, the one from Murphy's Law. I'll call it brilliant when the fuselage is closed. But I want to look at the intake splitter situation before that.

[dragonlanceHR]

Intake splitter looks like they planned the plastic or PE fairings (in part to cover the fuselage alignment pins) and then simply forgot them.

 

By the time I buy the kit there will be aftermarket resins galore.

 

Vedran

[Bravo52]

On 2/26/2017 at 3:48 PM, Muzz said:

I'm still not convinced the shape is that wrong to merit surgery.

I looked at some 3-views and there is a considerable change in shape in that section of the fusalage.  Laurent is correct in saying that is transitions from "circular top, elliptical bottom" and that is reflected in the plans.  That said, those 3-views could be flawed and it was specifically for the Cy-17yM-3.  However, the shape was similar to other Su-17s I was able to find on the internet.  Of course if it's on the internet, it must be correct... (snicker) ...

 

https://aerofred.com/details.php?image_id=89428

Edited February 28, 2017 by Bravo52

[Muzz]

It is more the concave bend along the length of the lower fuselage that is shown corrected in the above post. When you see photos of the aircraft such that below the kit outline looks correct to my eye.

 

https://allwallpapers.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/22139-sukhoi-su-17-1920x1080-aircraft-wallpaper.jpeg

 

[ABeck]

What do these photos tell ?

 

http://wikimapia.org/31374535/pl/Su-17

[Bjorn]

3 hours ago, Muzz said:

It is more the concave bend along the length of the lower fuselage that is shown corrected in the above post. When you see photos of the aircraft such that below the kit outline looks correct to my eye.

 

https://allwallpapers.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/22139-sukhoi-su-17-1920x1080-aircraft-wallpaper.jpeg

 

 

I agree. This one also looks very concave to me:

 

[Laurent]

4 hours ago, Bravo52 said:

https://aerofred.com/details.php?image_id=89428

These are the 4+ drawings. The outline may be good but perhaps not what's inside (relative lengths of windscreen and canopy, gun plate, etc).

 

 

Focus on the windscreen base shape

 

 

I believe that a lot of existing kits (Bilek/Italeri, Pantera, perhaps KP) are based on the 4+ drawings but not the KH CAD.

Edited February 28, 2017 by Laurent

[Laurent]

On 3/1/2017 at 01:34, Bjorn said:

 

 

I agree. This one also looks very concave to me:

 

 

 

Deleted - read the rules about Airliners.net photographs

Edited March 4, 2017 by Greg B
Repeated images removed

[ICMF]

FWIW, there are two separate issues at play here, which Laurent's last photo illustrates.

 

The nose on the Su-17 droops.  So there is naturally a downward slope from around the front of the wing root/leading edge of the belly pylons.  Because the aircraft sits nose-high, there *is* a 'hollow' under the aircraft.  That's not the problem.

 

The belly *between* the nose droop and the ventral strake should be straight.  It's basically a simple tube.  On the KH kit, it's actually curved, arcing up towards the centreline.  That's the 'concave' Laurent is talking about.

 

You can see it in this photo - the line between the pylons and the ventral strake is straight.  https://allwallpapers.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/22139-sukhoi-su-17-1920x1080-aircraft-wallpaper.jpeg

 

Same thing here.  It's a straight line between the ventral strake and the start of the nose droop: http://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/04/33/84/10_1280.jpg

 

On the KH kit, this corresponds to the mid-fuselage sections; the bottom of the mid-fuselage should be essentially straight, but it isn't.

 

 

See how it curves up towards the main gear well?  See how it's not parallel with the spine?  That's the problem.

[Blue_Centurion]

With all of these concerns now, I have to wonder how they will produce an accurate Su-35 or Su-34.

[DIO]

If someone hadn't pointed this out, I am pretty sure that I would not have noticed.

Although I do like kits to have the correct shape and panel lines, I doubt if I would ever take the plans to compare (as long as it looked good to my eyes).

So for this one, this would not have been a no buy issue, but it has become now.

And I am not sure if this is right on my behalf or for our hobby!

Maybe we have learnt to expect far too much from the companies?

Edited March 1, 2017 by DIO

[Bravo52]

1 hour ago, DIO said:

If someone hadn't pointed this out, I am pretty sure that I would not have noticed.

Although I do like kits to have the correct shape and panel lines, I doubt if I would ever take the plans to compare (as long as it looked good to my eyes).

So for this one, this would not have been a no buy issue, but it has become now.

And I am not sure if this is right on my behalf or for our hobby!

Maybe we have learnt to expect far too much from the companies?

Those are valid questions you have to ask yourself from a larger perspective of why you build kits.  I say if you enjoy correcting a perceived problem in your models, then it is important for you to do that for your long-term enjoyment of the hobby.  If it is to have a nice representation of the aircraft on the shelf, then by all means, value that.  From my perspective, I prefer the latter.  That said, another often overlooked question is do you have the skill to make a kit look correct/good.  I've seen models with were "accurized" but it looked like they built it with a butter knife and painted it with a whisk-broom. To me, all of the effort to make an accurate model was lost because all I could see was the big thumb print on the glass. I'd like to think I'd never say that to a modeler, just congratulate them for finishing another model and move on...  So is it that we expect too much from the companies or too little from our skill?

[Laurent]

5 hours ago, DIO said:

So for this one, this would not have been a no buy issue, but it has become now.

 

It hasn't for me. Inaccuracies can categorized into Blockers and non-Blockers. A Blocker is a visible issue that cannot be mitigated. The concave middle under fuselage profile issue isn't one as...

 

On 27/02/2017 at 0:01 AM, Laurent said:

I did that because this fix is relatively easy and quick to do. In the end it isn't really important because once the model is built, on its landing gear, with the pylons, the bottom of the fuselage won't be very visible.

 

The HB kit will require a correction set to fix the expected windscreen shape issue so it's a Blocker (and I may not buy the HB kit) BUT the above mentioned categorization isn't universal: some modellers are more familiar with the aircraft than others (I luuuuuve the Su-17/22), some modellers care more about model shapes than others.