That is a nice T-38, though the nose strut is canted too far forward. I like that overall blue.

The nice T-38 build aside, there are major dimensional and shape errors to be aware of with Trumpeter's 48th T-38s.

The fuselage is over 15 scale inches too long and the wing span over 10 scale inches too wide. That’s not being picky of over a trivial mm or two; those are gross over scale errors! The over scaled length error is between the aft main wheel well and the Exhaust nozzles. The wings; well they're just too big. What in the world did they use for references??? Another major shape error I found was that the forward sides of the intake profiles are too flared out from the top view.



On top of that, the canopies are too low and have a “squashed” look; quite evident from the build since He closed the canopies. The "arch profile" of the canopy sills (Side view) are way too pronounced as well. I closed the canopy on my slave build too, so I am not sure how fiddly the canopy hinges are if displayed open. It would probably be better to display the canopies open anyways, as to reduce the obvious flatten canopy profile; which is a deal killer for most guys I've talked to in regard to the Trumpy T-38.



With the entire fuselage pretty much misshapen and over scaled, I initially felt better about the cockpit as the detail certainly was a step above Wolfpack’s. I guess it was too good to be true as Trumpeter found a way to hose this area up too by making the cockpit “under-scaled”. The seats are significantly small; they have to be at least 1/50th scale! What a shame. Note that none of the AM T-38 seats will fit the Trumpy T-38.


The wheels are completely wrong in hub structure. At first sight the wheel/tires looked too large in diameter. That was confirmed when I mic’d out the wheel and tires and they too are over scaled. Trumpeter's main tires scale out nearly as large in diameter as a F-16A main. The nose is too large in diameter too, though not as bad as the mains. The over scaled wheel/tires are quite apparent from the built model pics as well.


Trumpeter botched their T-38 kit something fierce. These are not just trivial issues but gross shape and dimensional errors. The overall shape is poorly executed. It’s like they just guessed at every shape and dimension of this aircraft. It’s a crying shame as the tooling quality is quite nice and in some respects better than WolfPack’s. Wolfpack and Sword paid attention enough to at least nail the basic shape. I would not recommend the Trumpeter T-38 over Wolfpack’s or Sword’s Talon; not even close. But for those how could care less about "gross" shape and dimensional errors, at least the Trumpeter Talon kit is cheaper; so it at least has that going for it, if nothing else.

Mike V