1/48 Dragon Ta 154
The decals on this kit "exploded" as soon as they hit the water, those that didn't promptly fell apart on contact with the model. With very few after market options available I scrounge around the spares box for replacements but in the end I had to make custom ones for the fuselage codes of a fictitious aircraft. The mottle is also fictitious but based on references of night fighter aircraft of the period. The red dash lines on the wings were also custom made. A small amount of etch from Eduard assisted the detailing process. Aside from an ENORMOUS amount of weight in the nose and engines it was a fairly straight forward build.
The kit is as b-----, er, really damn difficult to get a result like this, so it's no problem giving it a 10.
Keith, nice job. I have heard from a couple of people that there are lots of issues with this kit. I have one and since I love night fighters have every intention of building it. Any hints of suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Hello Walt,
This kit is fairly straight forward to build if you keep in mind my experience with the decals which were a bit delicate to say the least. The other major issue is the fact that this model is a tail sitter so expect a fair bit of weight in the nose and engine nacelles. Some other things you might want to keep in mind is the radar operators position lacks a good bit of detail, especially the high sidewalls found on the real aircraft. You can easily fix this with a set from Eduard which provides the missing walls, seat belts, and additional instrument panel details for both the pilot and navigator positions. Two other points of concern are the propeller blades are too large compared to real aircraft (Cutting Edge made replacements if you can find them) and some of these kits came with warped wings that droop. Mine were only slightly warped and I easily fixed them by running the parts under hot water. The fuselage halves need care to align properly and there was a noticeable gap where the top of the wings join the fuselage. You should also take care with the radar assemblies, they are very delicate.
Best of luck Walt hope that helps.
Wonderful looking 154 Keith! The kit sounds li.ke it's a complete pain and you have done a beautiful job all round.