Jump to content

1/72 - Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 Black Widow II by Dragon (re-release) - box art - release in 2019


Homebee

Recommended Posts

Italeri is the better kit, which was reboxed by Tamiya and Testors for their respective markets. The Dragon kit is a very different mold with less accurate shapes.

 

That is not say that the Italeri kit is great, but it is much closer. There used to be a good visual description on the YF-23.net website, but it seems to have finally died. It had not been updated in years and a lot of image links were broken. Even the internet Wayback Machine hasn't captured the images. Here is the write up, however:

 

" Italeri was the first company in the world to release a scale model of the YF-23. Considering the lack of information at the time, it was not a bad effort. It was not up to the standard of Hasegawa, it did not have recessed panel lines, but nevertheless it was a start. The tooling actually depicted PAV-1 only; no separate parts were included for PAV-2's distinctive trough and shroud. The decals included markings for PAV-2 nevertheless, but they were pretty basic and not comprehensive enough to do a good job. The kit was then picked up by Testors (nos 657 and 0191) as they had an existing relationship with Italeri. Revell then reissued this tooling some years later (no 4326), followed by Tamiya. It is dimensionally accurate, but will need some refinement to make an accurate model. The really frustrating thing was that none of the decal sheets that came with any release were accurate nor complete. Each one was either missing something or was printed in the wrong colour or shape. Caracal Models have now remedied that problem with a new decal sheet dedicated to the YF-23."

 

"Dragon also released a kit of the YF-23 which was a different tooling, but it had some serious contour innaccuracies and is not worth bothering with. It should be considered as no more than a toy. A picture of the Dragon tooling is included here so that the modeller can learn the difference between the two."

 

I have the Italeri tooling with plans to fix and accurize it eventually. I would like to display next to a Hasegawa F-20 as both very beautiful Northrop prototypes, too many kits and too little time though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/24/2019 at 10:44 PM, cvrle said:

which one is more accurate?

No one.

I have both models.

Yes, Italeri close to real YF-23 then Dragon, but not much.

Most big problem both models wrong sections. Theoretical sections factory drawings have in Internet therefore, anyone who has any of these models can verify this for himself.

 

New tool YF-23 it's real need!

 

B.R.

Serge

  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...