Kitty Hawk Su-34 Metal Landing Gear and Exhausts (MT-02)

[Mike]

Su-34 Metal Landing Gear and Exhausts (MT-02)

1:48 Kitty Hawk

 

 

We reviewed the new Kitty Hawk 1:48 Su-34 recently here, and I'm allegedly building one here to stretch my cabinet space to breaking point when I manage to finish it.  I made a plea to Song on Facebook a couple of weeks ago for a set of these new gear legs that he was showing off, and thought no more of it until we received our latest box of kits from them.  I opened up the Little Bird with figures, and spotted a couple of clear plastic boxes wrapped in bubble-wrap and some really tough clear tape, which immediately piqued my interest, as they didn't look like they belonged there.

 

A few minutes (seemed like hours) of wrestling with the packaging later, I discovered this handsome set of upgraded parts (times two) and was overwhelmed with both their shininess and the fact that Song had remembered me! Inside the little clear boxes with the Kitty Hawk and Panda logos embossed on the top are three gear legs, two exhaust cans, and the little mudguard for the nose gear, all in what looks like brass to non-metallurgist me.

 

 

I've been working on the kit gear legs on and off recently, and have become quite familiar with them as a result, and was impressed with the number of parts that these replacements render surplus to requirements.  The nose gear leg is very well appointed with most of the parts in-situ, other than the landing lights and their brackets, plus the ancillary parts on the back of the main leg.  It also benefits from the fine struts that form part of the mudguard support being made from metal, which makes them much stronger.  I had already knocked off the end of my styrene leg, so this is great news.  The mudguard is also very well appointed, and will look great in place.  Moving on to the main gear legs, you have the structural parts all provided as a single part, with the scissor-links and dampers all there and adding to the strength of the gear leg immensely.  The casting technique has been chosen very wisely, and has almost no clean-up to do, and zero visible seams.  I'm no expert on casting metal, so suspect it's possibly lost wax casting, but whatever the technique it is very effective.  Top marks!

 

The exhaust nozzles provided in the kit are resin castings, and as such look pretty good.  Putting them side by side with the metal cans shows two things that stand out in the replacement parts' favour.  The first is that the lip is finer on the metal one, and the second the detail in the forward end is different, with a corrugated section and a ring of aerodynamic fairings at the inner base of each petal.  The two location pegs are also much more sturdy than the resin ones, and again clumsy old me had managed to break one off the resin ones somehow (although it could have been damaged in transit - I can't remember).

 

 

Conclusion

Having been bitten by collapsing styrene landing gear with my AMK Mig-31BM in the past, I will be a lot happier with the long-term stability of my Su-34 now it is fitted with big strong metal gear legs.  A great idea, and excellent execution.  They should be available soon, and I would heartily recommend picking up a set, especially if you are adding any aftermarket to your model, which of course increases the all-up weight of your creation, all of which balances of three legs.

 

Extremely highly recommended.

 

Review sample courtesy of

Available soon from major hobby shops