Vega 31 1/72eme

[PATRICK FROM THE SANDS]

Hello Fellow Modelers!

 

Here is the second aircraft of my Blackbirds series: The Academy F-117A. When I started this project long time ago, finding an accurate kit of this strange beast was challenging, as all models available on the market were wrong to extra wrong! 

Finally, I chose the Academy kit, which has the advantage to have an opened bomb bay. However, I did a lot of modifications on the kit and spent some money in PE parts. The big challenges were to raise all the panels lines to have a correct faceted aspect, using thin Evergreen strip styrene and to cut the fake air intakes grils and to replace them by very fine mesh. I decided to represent the vertical stabilizers in the rest position but their complex geometry and inner profile doesn't t help. Flaps down was easier.

Basically the kit has wrong undercarriage and wheels, poor cockpit, the wheel wells are not deep enough, poor representation of the sensors and the shape of the intakes is questionable to my opinion. For this, nothing to do but for the rest, I took wheels from an F-15C kit (they are similar) cockpit was entirely redone, a resin ACEII seat and a complete reshaping of the false wheel wells and bomb bay. A lot of work for a disappointing result;

Painting and markings: "Normal" challenge with the black tint, I used the same technique as for my SR-71, several layers of brownish, blueish etc blacks. To remember the "good old days when I served in the FAF (I was on duty the night it happened in CAOC Vicenza), my model represents the famous "Vega 31" which was shot down by the Serbian Air Defense. Decals come from the excellent "Two Bobs" sheet.

 

The photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and the little dio: the Dodge RAM pick up comes from F4 Model, not easy to build, the transparent parts are too thick and the kit is basic for the price...

 

 

 

 

 

As a conclusion, very disappointing, I will definitively build another Nighthawk, may be the new Hasegawa kit (THE model of this strange aircraft at that scale???).

 

 

 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

Nice one.