WOW! A 1/350 Short Hull FFG-7 in Styrene!

About damn time! I have built tanks and aircraft from academy. Their quality is pretty good! Detail is usually on par with all the other current Asian/Western European kit producers. I would imagine this kit will be on par with Dragon's releases in the same scale.

That is definitely what I'm talkin' about. I've wanted an FFG-7 to go with my 1:350 CVN-65 for years. Looking at the photos, it looks nice out of the box but I think about half the parts will be going in the trash in favor of photoetch. The railings in particular and much of the gear up top (mast, etc).

http://www.modelrec.com/all-brands/academy.asp?GetItemNo=300

Academy is a mixed bag. Their newest stuff is really nice (F/A-18C, CH-53E, CH-46), so I'm optimistic about this. Job 1, convert it to waterline. I'm not a ship-on-a-stick fan.

Only Academy model I ever built was a 1/480 scale C-5A. Even at that scale it's still the size of a 1/144 Hornet. (I usually build 1/700 ships and 1/144 aircraft). The fit was really good and the engine detail was good too, considering the scale. Only problem was the decals; the larger ones didn't seem to want to stick.

 I didn't even know that Academy was making ships. What else do they have out?

 

WIP:

Dragon 1/700 Sovremenny (85%)

Dragon 1/700 Type 42 Batch 3 (20%)

Revell  1/144 E-2C (50%)

Revell 1/144 MiG-31 (20%)

Can't wait