Kinetic 1/72 MQ-9 Reaper

[Whofan]

As the decal sheet for this kit includes decals for an Italian operated reaper, I could have done that and said it was the Italian Job - the remake, but I decided to stick with the British markings (When I get around to making the F-35B in the stash, I'll do that one in British markings, too)

 

Interestingly, this is probably the most recent purchase in the stash that I've made!

 

 

 

I hand painted the white discs, then cut the decals for the red only. 

 

 

This doesn't show particularly well that I used bare metal foil and then clear green (Tamiya) over it for the front sensor glass. You can just about make out the hellfire sensor, I used a drop of glue and glaze and then painted it clear orange (Tamiya).

 

 

This is the aerocraft brass undercarriage. I painted the oleo in the front leg with a molotow chrome pen. The aerocraft undercarriage is certainly sturdy !

 

 

I also painted the propellor spinner with the molotow chrome pen, it doesn't look too bad compared to the picture in the walk around.

 

I pinted the model with Halfords rattle can grey primer, then Tamiya Rattle can light compass grey. I think this might have been a touch dark.

 

Overall, the kit itself was a pretty good build. It went together fine, I did have to use some filler on a couple of gaps but nothing too bad at all. I put 20 grams of fishing weight in the nose, it certainly isn't a tail sitter !!

 

The aerocraft undercarriage is really sturdy, priming them with Mr Metal Primer they took the halfords primer and then the tamiya compass gray well, but the instructions called for the nosewheel to be black, and that (tamiya flat black) is prone to rubbing off. Let's hope the coat of Galleria flat varnish stops that.

 

I decided to go for only two hellfires on the pylons, painting them yellow first and using masking tape for the 3 bands and then nato green. Looking at the walk around photos, it seems a pretty clean plane so I did no weathering, washing, or pre shading.

 

The decals went on okay. They also came off okay, too; one decal disappeared, only to resurface in my little water bath! Nope, I have no idea how that happened.  I wasn't sure about whether the propellor tips were yellow; the instructions didn't show it, and one or two walk around photos didn't appear to show yellow tips, but then going through the decals I found decal blade strips. I decided to leave them off because I thought they'd be too much of a faff to put on.

 

Overall, the instuctions and painting call outs are a dogs dinner. I have parts on the sprue that weren't mentioned in the leaflet (maybe they are intended to be left off, maybe the leaflet writer didn't put them in); some of the instructions wrongly numbered parts,  and the painting call outs leave a lot of areas unidentified; it was down to guesswork or the walk around photos! Oh, and some other builds I found in Britmodeller had some good photos which I used as the basis for my guesses.

 

Overall, this was a nice kit to make,  but oh dear, let down a bit by Kinetic's poor instructions.

[Natter]

Really good to see a UAV on the forum, and I'm glad you went for the RAF option too.

[Whofan]

14 hours ago, Natter said:

Really good to see a UAV on the forum, and I'm glad you went for the RAF option too.

 

While I criticise the instructions, you get a very good choice of operators in the decals; French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Australian, British and two American schemes.

 

I’m pretty sure the other builds here I looked at to see if my guesses on paint and decal placement were right are mostly the British option. 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Whofan

[Rob G]

That's a bit of all right, that is. I must finish my Italeri boxing of this kit, just have to conquer the complete lack of mojo. 

 

Nice work! 

[Whofan]

1 hour ago, Rob G said:

That's a bit of all right, that is. I must finish my Italeri boxing of this kit, just have to conquer the complete lack of mojo. 

 

Nice work! 

 

The mojo will come!

[Edge]

Really nice result! I had similar issues when I built the kit recently - found it becoming a chore towards the end!

 

Edge

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

It's an unusual and very strange looking aeroplane. You've done a good job i think.