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Here is my recently finished Academy 1/48 Su-27UB.
It is built as su-27UB-Blue 43-54th Guards Fighter Regiment/148th Combat and
Conversion Training Centre of the Air Defense Force. Savasleyka AB, 1998
The Kit:
The Academy kit is a beauty as well as a beast. It
has very good overall shape, good general detail, positionable control
surfaces, very fine recessed panel lines and rivets, photoetched parts, rubber
tires. On the other hand its cockpit and missiles are useless if you want to
build an accurate su-27.
References:
The Su-27 Flanker story book from Airfleet publishing and various pictures
collected from the Internet were used as reference.
Errors of the Academy kit:
For correcting the errors on the
cockpit Neomega came to the rescue, their su-27UB cockpit set is a masterpiece,
including a very clear vacuum-formed canopy that can be displayed open. (Kit
canopy cannot be displayed open unless you decide to scratchbuild the
hydraulic mechanism.
Kit missiles have obvious shape errors. Here you
have three options: Modelpoint missiles, scratchbuilding or leaving the kit
without armament. (If you are concerned about the accuracy of course)
Modelpoint missiles were not an option for me with their price tag of ~15$ a
piece, so I tried to scratchbuild them. I shaped the bodies from sprues using
sandpapers and files, opened details on them, printed the scale fins onto
acetate sheets, cut them....
The problem is, attaching the acetate sheets to the missile bodies are very
hard, at the end I messed it up with superglue and decided to build the kit
without any missiles. The missile building part took 2 weeks and I got
frustrated at the end and I built a peaceful flanker:)
Kaan
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this article
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