Reactivating

I applied liquefied styrene (LqS) allover the joints, where the previous glue had weathered and mostly gone away. I also applied LqS at the many gaps and mismatches that were present:

Surprisingly, fit is not that good at certain places, like the intake to fuselage joint.

Additionally, areas like the slats present really bad look, should you decide to depict them closed, as is the normal posture in a parked plane. I hope LqS smooths things...we'll see after the first coarse sanding...

I started to assemble the landing gear, too. Instructions want you to trap the front wheel between the two supporting arms. I wouldn't like this idea, so left it off. I did not glue the middle part of the supporting arms to the leg, hoping they will flex enough, in order to receive the fron wheel at the final stages...

Thanks for stopping by!

More to come!

Thanks Tom @tcinla!

Holy cow! That is one BIG model!
I hope it’s one of Trumpeter’s better kits.
Found any mistakes yet, Spiros?

Thanks my friends @eb801 and @holzhamer!

Upon its appearance, this kit looked very impressive: big, modern, nice recessed panel lines, two piece metal LG cylinders with springs to install (which is a definitely innecessary fiddle - for me) , PE (but the hard metal type, which are dificult to cut and bend), vinyl tyres (not a plus for many...), open gun compartment, shafts for the moveable surfaces (which turned out to be a minus, due to its complexity and "multimedia" status and I don't really bother to have my moveable surfaces toyishly "moveable"...) and so on.

Fit at certain areas leaves a lot to be desired, though (slats and engine intakes, for instance - but a part of it might well be my mistake).

There are some ejection pin marks at prominent places and, at this scale of this massive fighter, I believe LG brake and electric lines should be provided ( I will scratchbuild some stuff there...).

Cockpit is ok, but nothing special: just a scale up version (bit more beefed up) of its quarterscale brother. A moving canopy feature is provided, but it is fiddly and will look a tad toyish, upon finished. It has been also stated that there's a center mold line at the canopy centerline, but I haven't unpacked mine yet to see... 🙂

Shape looks good. There are some small raised details at the rudders that I am not sure if they are depicted well...they protrude a bit unnaturally. Also, some bleed exits at the back of the fuselage look a bit rectangular, not aerodynamically refined, but I will have to find some ref pics to evaluate this.

All in all, it looks to be a nice kit: big, bold and beautiful! However, IMHO, Trumpeter should have avoided all those "extras" (vinyl tires, two piece metal LG, metal shafts for the moving surfaces, hard PE, and so on..), which add up to the kit cost anyway.

They should have concentrated in providing an even more detailed cockpit and landing gear. Like they had Cartograf printing their decals, they might possibly ask a specialized company, like Eduard, to provide a marvellous PE to beef up the allaround detail this big beautiful plane cries for.

Gluing madness...

The Sukhoi models, like the F-4, need no weight (but I checked, just in case... 🙂 ). So, I attached the radome...

Fit was so so at places, but it might just be my fault. For sure fit is not perfect, as initially expected by looking at those molds (and I also hear the Trumpeter quarterscale Vigilante giving me a thumbs-up for my statement!).

Anyway, liquefied styrene took care of all gaps.

Here's how this absolute beauty of a plane looks at the moment:

Build them, don't bin them!

You're doing a great job at nibbling away at this monster.

Big is an understatement Spiros 😉 hope your paint stock is at full level