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F/A-18E Super Hornet weapons load query


John B (Sc)

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HI all.

I have been building an Italeri F/A-18E Super Hornet. (If you are wondering - don't do it, unless you have LOTS of filler available. My next will be the Revell offering!)  IRather than give it the deep six it so deserves, I am battling on.

 

Amongst the various weapons offered with the kit is a strange modification to the port lower fuselage side mounting for the AIM120. This is replaced with a fairing and a long tube, bulged at the rear, with a clear lens at the front.   Clearly intended to be some sort of sensor, but what?  I can;t find anything similar on the photos I have seen, so is it an Italeri oddity?

Any help appreciated - it;s just idle curiosity but I am reluctant to add on something I know nowt about at all.

Oh for the long lost days when kit instructions named all the parts, some times in detail ! 

 

John B

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Thank you all. Alan P's guess was correct - Italeri have provided an earlier piece of kit, the ASQ-173 LST, which is what Alan's picture shows. ( Wikipedia shows this along with the AAS-38) Given the age of the kit, this makes sense. (True, a photo would have helped.)

 

 I may add an ASQ-228 to my next build  - looks like something quite possible to scratch build.

 

I agree - it is  a funny kit. Very curate's egg - some good, some bad. Odd was the way fuselage has been split, also the wing-fuselage junction with complete;y useless (to me) locating pins. Made flush assembly impossible for me  Much filler required...

 

Regards,

John B

Edited by John B (Sc)
missing word
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(from Alex) Edit: a funny kit, it even has an airbrake where the original hasn't got one...

 

Alex - I didn't see any airbrake on the kit I have, and as you say the original hasn't got one at all. (In the conventional sense)

Reading some early reviews and looking at pictures online, I got the impression there may have been two different kits issued by Italeri. Where does the airbrake appear on the kit you have - or have seen ?

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the newer tool Italeri Super Hornet has a re-tooled rear fueslage without the airbrake: I assume since the Growler kit is out...

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good job on correcting that !

 

that is the old sprue:

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Thanks exdraken.  That makes it clear - I have the later variant of the kit.

 

Does anyone know what the two shallow recesses on top of the LERX sections are, just in front of those vents, and why the covers are provided as separate items?  What sits under there?

 

Cheers,

John B

Edited by John B (Sc)
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