Flanker Frenzy 2012

Pics would be pretty boring at this point, I'll bundle them up with the finished seats/cockpit though.

Not planning on it (subject to change at any point!), certainly not for the first one - I don't know what actually needs help until I've built one right! The glass all looks good which is a high point with me. I'll likely add some seatbelts/buckles on my own, tape & tin just to add a little depth. There may be need for a little plumbing inside the undercarriage bays, probably a few nav lights & brake lines etc etc that will improve things without me going crazy on it. The Italeri kits actually have a relatively small parts count considering the good detail - once I get the cockpit sealed in I should make pretty good time.

LOL 

Pics or it didn't happen.

Are you using any AM parts aside from the decals?

Alright, despite other projects still on the go.... I started the assembly line over the weekend. Cockpit pieces for the Flankers are now snipped from the sprues, cleaned up and assembly/painting will start up shortly. I'll probably start work on the missiles once the offices are taken care of.

Mach 1.8 watermelons...  just don't try to spit the seeds.

VanceCrozier

hmmmm - somebody want to go nuts with colour??

 

for some reason, those remind me of watermelons.....

VanceCrozier

hmmmm - somebody want to go nuts with colour??

 

OMG this is like a punch in the eye!

i suspect these passed through "frecce tricolori" and was not fumes trails but used tamiya cans

hmmmm - somebody want to go nuts with colour??

The curse of the Tweezer-pult struck last night as one of the tiny conical exhaust nozzles for one of the 1/350 K's went flying off into the unknown...  I might try to fashion another one from some spares.

Well even if I don't go for the hard-edged splinter pattern, there will be lots of masking ahead of me. I think I'll be trying two things with the paint on this machine:

• leaving the rudders off until after painting (which I've never had to do since "my return", not building much in the way of modern A/C)
• Enamels for the pale blue-gray, acrylics for the dark blue/dark gray in case I need to scrub it down & repair the paint. I guess the other "safe" option would be to seal the pale blue-gray and then proceed with the masking.

Either way, it should be fun!

You're right about the built-up Ukranian Flanker, very nice. (The 1/48 Academy kit??) Great look at the splinter pattern too, I could probably base my masking on this overhead view, unless I see something in my photos that is obviously different.  That Linden Hill sheet - has two different shades of blue inside the roundel, and there are two slightly different yellows as well?

And those Kazakh machines are sharp-looking too... with a simpler pattern!

With the amount of masking that you're going to have ahead of you, I sincerely wish you luck at that stage because the slightest paint lift during the mask removal is going to be painful- ask me how I know from  doing German hard-edge splinters...  

I should be getting both of these Linden Hill sets sometime soon, so I'll have the opportunity to try one myself:

http://www.lindenhillimports.com/lhd32007.htm which is Ukrainian Flankers including Blue 08.  Vance, take a look at the pics of the finished model .. it is stunning.

and

http://www.lindenhillimports.com/lhd32008.htm which is for Kazakh birds. 

Well seeing as how I have this gorgeous photo, with evidence of a white nose, I'll probably avoid the green-nose on this one. It does look better this way. Now I just need to paint it right!

I'm sure the Russians had a reason for using the green paint, but the white nose cone and antennae look so much better and blend into the camo better..

That photo is great- what a sky- could anyone ask for a better day to go cloud-punching?

VanceCrozier

hmmmm - just spotted a pic of blue 08 on airliners.net... with white nosecone:

mmm .. then you want to use some km of masking tape

From the picture seems that these light light blue are already consumed 

hmmmm - just spotted a pic of blue 08 on airliners.net... with white nosecone:

NeedBeer- glad to have you on board! 

Vance, those are some tasty options. If you ever get the urge to build yet more Flankers, then check out the Linden Hill decals as they have great sets for them.  They're just a little difficult to get...

There's quite a few good pics online of Blue 08...  good choice as in most photos she is wearing fresh paint.

Colour plate from the Authentic Decals sheet that I now have. "Blue 08" has some interesting badges applied to it, green nose, and false canopy markings underneath. Leaning towards this one for my first Flanker....

Hi Dre

Please put me down for this GB

Not sure when I'll start but I have the Russian Knights version in my stash - su27 flanker B 1/48 from Academy

You're doing a -27 variant, yes?  If so, then know that early production -27's had a  white nose cone and antenna panels whereas the later production models sported the medium green paint on the same.  I'll need to dig into a book that mentions the shift-point on that particular detail...  but if that decal set includes color profiles I'd go with whatever they describe.  If this was a popularly-selling DML kit, then there would each production variant along the way with several whitebox offerings of Blue 388.

A white paint disc should fix that little transparency problem, or a piece of white decal film cut to appropriate size.

bsyamato - thanks for those links. My Russian isn't so good, but the pictures should be quite helpful.

Dre - I'll have to double-check, but I think both of the Ukrainian options have a splinter pattern; one with a white nosecone, one with a green nosecone. I think I'm leaning towards the bright green nose right now. I thought I had read somewhere that someone was disappointed that "the Ukrainian roundels were a little transparent", pale blue & yellow are probably likely to be that way. I don't remember if it was the set I'm using, or another. I may want to paint/decal a white disc beneath the roundel just to make sure it shows well.

Vance, if you do a Ukrainian bird, are you going to do the splinter camo or what?  I just picked up my package of Begemot stencil decals from the post office- straight from Mother Russia!- and there are 4 sheets per package with extensive notes and information on placement...  it is going to take weeks to fully place these things.

Bsyamato- I'll check out those links- more photos are good.

nice to see you get some tips Vance good to see some paper reference there! 

Dunno if i posted before but here some russian link about flankers: at the bottom of the pages, keeps eyes open because just above the subject pictures have lots of lonks to zipped files with scale draws

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fighter/su27.html

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fighter/su27ub.html

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fighter/su30.html

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fighter/su33.html

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fighter/su35.html

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fighter/su37.html

and main page about fighters

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fighter/

and here the bomber

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/bomber/

http://www.airwar.ru/enc/bomber/su34.html

Good things in most pages ,between the pictures have the weapons configuration (just for rivet counters )

Have nice flankers

The missile heads look convincing to me dre, nicely done. (Seats as well, all that detail in 1/32 is tempting sometimes, then I start thinking..."but where would I put them!?!?! )

Decals arrived from Sprue Bros on Friday night, along with some other goodies. Spent several hours trying to decide which options I'll be using. One of the Ukrainian versions for sure...

these small sukhoi are not so small

will try to get one of these micro kits on the next supply order !! an eventually carrier kit for these will be like a blood transfer LOL

Since I couldn't resist tearing into the 1/350 kits and starting some, I thought I'd share how small they are.     I think that they're well detailed for the scale, loads of easy fun and I can't wait to finish them.  I could get addicted to microscale aircraft collections...

A shot of the Su-33UB sprue.  That's it- everything for 1 kit and 5 more of these hidden under the white plastic in a $7 dollar box. 

Here's the 6 Su-27K fleet.  The sprue sets are almost identical to the Su-33UB's.  Once the glue has dried, I'll give the fuselages a quick seam-sanding and add the rest of the wings.  I'll paint the wheels seperately but not glue them in.  Like I said, they are pretty much the same size as the 1/32 seats.

These things are more modeling fun than I've had in a while.  I can think of all sorts of curious projects involving 1/350 and smaller scale aircraft...

The larger R-27 missiles are roughly the size of a decent pen.

I agree that the fin plastic is pretty thick in places, but Trumpy actually made an effort on the R-27's fins to thin them down a bit.  It's the R-73's that have really thick fins.

I've been thinking about cutting thin brass sheet or plastic sheet to make new fins that are more scale correct...  but that's going to be a lot of cutting whereas a few minutes with sandpaper can achive the same effect. 

Glad you like this lot, I've got so many more to do still!

Oh, the 1/350 fleet is in and they are about the same size as those K-36D seats.  Tiny little things.

these missiles looks huge!! what's the dimension , about a ww2 fighter in 1/72? the clear heads looks great Dre

As in other kits, brands use too thick plastic for missiles fins!! 

Here are the Aires resin K-36D ejection seats for the Su-27UB C, washed and awaiting a little drybrushing for wear.

Do that drybrushing, dullcoat and they're done unless someone can point out something needs correcting.  I've found photos that show the two 'cans' beside the headrest to painted on the very front end one of these colors- black, silver or red.  I left them black so the other seat color spots pop more.

And now missiles...  the 1/32 Trumpeter Su-27 B kit has 3 types of missiles-  four R-73 "Archer"  air-to-air missiles and 2 each of R-27 with and without clear seeker heads.

If you look closely enough to the clear heads you'll see all kinds of air bubbles that got trapped under there and part lines galore on the various wings.  I can still fix the part lines but the air bubbles are going to stay.  I've left all the missile bodies a plain white without any banding until I can find definitive photos to finish them.  As far as I can tell, the Russians use the black bands on training units and the live missiles are just plain white. 

My birds don't carry training rounds and I've got a set of Begemot full stencil decals arriving Monday... these are supposed to be every single bit of lettering that might appear on an Su-27B and it's ordnance.  If I don't use the decals on these missiles, I've got so many sets of modern Russian air-delivered ordnance that I'll find a use for them somewhere.

I need to get off my butt and get back onto the -27B.  I'm tantalizingly close to beginning to start thinking about painting it.

I'm glad to hear that some passengers and crew members did what honor and duty required; from what I read today, sea captains are pretty much unanimously condemning the skipper for his (in)actions.  I find it almost unbelievable that such an accident is possible in this wonderous day and age of technology, but they said the same thing back in 1912.  A coworker was a Caribbean cruiseline employee for Carnival back in the 90's and he is blown away by this.

Time to snap some photos...

btw the honor was saved from lots of other great people aboard and from out

For example the drummer of an onboard band leave his place on the last avaible lifeboat to a child and he died on the ship, another officer on the ship helped till last minuute the ship abandon and was founded 3 days after alive but with a leg breaked for the ship movements .... so was! 

Someone had dubbed the famous conversation replacing the s.a.r. chief (guardia costiera .. coast guard)  with the voice of the full metal jacket sergeant .... LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGfkzV3g41E