I bought Revell's 1/72 Super Hornet a kit when it was issued a couple of years ago.
When I saw the postman coming with that big box from Hong Kong's Lucky Model containing this very model and Revell's F-22 I was soooooooooooooo excited, but my expression suddenly changed when he told me I had to pay a €10 custom tax in order to get the package. Lesson learned: NEVER get big things from extra-EU countries if you live in Italy as the risk of being taxed is very high
Anyway, today I started cutting the parts from the sprue. There are not many parts, it will be an OOB build and I hope to finish this model in a reasonable time as I have three aircrafts waiting to be finished since 2010.
The kit is substantially a scaling down of the German firm's 1/48 product and as you may have read it shares it's bigger brother's same accuracy issues.
I've never built the Hasegawa model, but I've read a review comparing it with the Revell offering on modellingmadness.com which you can read here
http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/mod/previews/revell/04298.htm
To sum it up:
* The Hasegawa models are more accurate in terms of shape but don't have ordnance and the cockpit is totally bare.
* On the contrary, Revell offers a detailed cockpit and more ordnance despite some shape and accuracy issues inherited from its 1/48 brother.
Nevertheless, it looks like a Super Hornet.
As for the cockpit, the detail is quite good and decals for the instrument panels are provided, and the ejection seat - made of three parts - has harnesses moulded on. Also the control stick looks nice.
As for the fuselage, the panel lines and rivets are nice, although not as crisp as other productions.
The decal sheet is a Cartograf one and is very big and nice, allowing one to depict the old VFA-137 CAG bird and a VFA-105 aircraft in low visibility livery, which will be my marking choice. The decals are matt and the film is quite visible, we'll se how they behave once applied. My only worry is that I already have a bad experience with this kind of decals which didn't resist the Mr. Mark Softer treatment.
Today I started cutting the parts from the sprues and dry-fitted the main components. They fit quite well, especially the two main fuselage halves. Care must be taken when aligning the four parts of the nose area, but everything should look ok when glued. A bit of Mr. Surfacer will be helpful to belnd it all.
As for the rest, it looks very promising. I'll let the images speak in my place!
PS. I knew the Super Hornet was a big beast, but not so big!
