History

Su-7B the first ground-attack version, factory designation S-22, manufactured 1960-1962 with 431 built.

On 31 July 1958, the Soviet tactical aviation (Frontovaya aviatsiya, фронтовая авиация) tasked Sukhoi with developing a ground-attack version of the Su-7, which could replace the scrapped Ilyushin Il-10. The resulting S-22 retained the basic layout of its S-2 predecessor, incorporating primarily structural refinements for high-speed low-altitude operations. It first flew in March 1959, and began entering service in 1961 as the Su-7B.

Su-7B and its variants became the main Soviet ground-attack aircraft of the 1960s. They were also widely exported (691 planes, including also some trainers). In 1977-1986 aircraft remaining in Soviet service have been replaced by Su-17 and MiG-27

The Kit

The kit is packaged in an end opening box which is very easy to squash, on opening the box we find all the part sealed in one bag including the instruction sheet. In the bag there are three grey plastic sprues and one clear, which are made up of forty one grey parts and one clear part, although one part is missing on one of my sprues luckily this part can easily be made with plasti-card. Also the very prominent pitot tube on the nose of the aircraft will need to be scratch built.

Panel lines are very finely engraved and there are no ejector pin marks at all although with the weapons and tanks being moulded whole seam lines while need to be cleaned up. Cockpit detail consists of an ejector seat, side walls and instrument panel, which in this scale is more than enough as the cockpit opening and canopy are small. Talking of the canopy, although this is left to rattle around in the bag it shows no sign of scratching.

One point about this kit which is common to all the Attack Hobby Kits is that there are no locating pins on any part, all parts are butt jointed including the wings, although with this kit the wheel wells dissect the fuselage which gives the position for the wings.

The Instructions

These consist of an A4 sheet folded down the middle to give you an A5 two page booklet. Page one consists of a warning section followed by a parts and decal layout, page two is the build sequent’s in 5 stages. Stage 2 calls out for a nose weight but the actual weight is not mentioned, stages 4 and 5 involve the install of the wing pylons which need to be measured using the supplied diagram.

Parts’ painting is called out during construction using Humbrol numbers and colour names only.

Markings

The markings in the kit are for either an aircraft of the USSR in four colour camouflage over light blue or another aircraft of the USSR in overall aluminium. Decals consist of numbers and stars only.

No unit identity is mentioned.

In Conclusion

A welcome addition for this scale, but some modelling skill would be required to get the best from this kit.

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