Cockpit Construction
On opening the kit, the first place the instructions take you to is the cockpit area. The cockpit comprises of a bathtub, rudder pedals and control column. To be honest this is a little disappointing as there is little detail provided by the manufacturer. There are definite improvement possibilities here and I am sure the aftermarket companies will get good business from this by offering a more detailed option. In contrast, the standard seat within the kit is excellent, with sharp detail, and, with the exception of the molded straps (which I removed with a scalpel) is an excellent offering. I am sure this could be completed by finishing it with some home made/aftermarket straps.
I found some references online (see the reference section of this IPR) for the cockpit colours and tried to model my cockpit to as real as I could match. I used Tamiya X-66 (Light Grey) for the tub and surrounding areas, with the switches picked out in black/anthracite, yellow & red. The other main colour used in the cockpit is a mixture of Vallejo Medium Sea Grey mixed with a dash of black to give an anthracite colour. I believe this works better than black that is described on the instructions.
I was really happy with the seat supplied. As I have said above, it is exceptional quality for a standard kit seat, with the exception of the moulded straps. I really can’t see why etched parts could not be provided here, especially when the kit is of this scale and price. The seat was finished in Tamiya Semi Gloss Black (main frame), Tamiya Khaki (seat covers) & Anthracite (head box). You can see the seat in progress to the left.
The next part of the instructions concentrates on building up the fuselage and attaching the lower wing. This also includes attaching the front air intake and rear undercarriage bays. I have to admit again the kit here has some really good points but is let down by the fit of the wing to the fuselage which I will discuss later within this review. At this point the instructions say that the front canards are to be installed. I have decided to leave these off to be installed after painting and decaling to avoid damage.
I also decided to cut out the APU exhaust on the port side of the airframe as per the photo to add a little depth. I am sure you could add a clear plastic pipe to mimic the exhaust; however I left this part out.
Fuselage
The Fuselage fits together well with no problems, however I found the fit with the tail somewhat of an issue. As you can see from the photo that the soft edge of the tail provides a slight gap that requires to be filled at a later date.
Next on the instructions are the construction of the front air intake to the engines and the construction of the front undercarriage. I was a little disappointed with the fit on this section and I can honestly say that the parts do not exactly go together well and that you will require a lot of filler here to fill in the gaps that are left.
The picture shows a small line present on the intake after a few hours of filling and sanding back to make good.
Once this was complete I turned my attention to fitting the lower wing to the fuselage. At this point you have to decide if you wanted to display the model with the engine bay open. This is carried out by cutting away the two bays from the lower wing section (an option I have chosen not to do).
The final element of construction before the wing can be joined to the fuselage is the rear undercarriage section. I must admit that the detail here is good and fits together very well which I hope can be seen in the pictures below.
So now we should be ready to join the wing to the fuselage. I spent a few hours one evening dry fitting this to try and trim plastic trying to make the joins together better. Again the joins are not superb but it is nothing that filler won’t sort out!
The main issues of the wing fit are the rear joins near the exhaust/burner cans and on the underside of the wings adjacent to the air intakes. Armed with tape, a couple of vice grips, poly cement and cyno-acrylic glue, I managed to attach the wing with little problems and minor filling to be completed once the top wing is atatched.