Hobbycraft 1/72 Sukhoi Su-22U Fitter E

HOBBYCRAFT 1:72 SUKHOI SU-22U FITTER E
'INBOX Review'

Reviewer: Myself (rec.models.scale)

Kit Details: Hobbycraft (Canada) #HC1635 - Suchoi Su-22U Fitter E; 1/72 scale

Kit Parts: For many years this kit was the only mainstream mold of the two-seat Su-22 Fitter so a rare buy indeed, although the Bilek kits might arguably not be known as mainstream kits and are also hard to find nowadays. This kit comes in the standard Hobbycraft Canada fare as the French wording is a giveaway on the box. There really are not a lot of parts to this kit, with around 30 light grey parts on two sprues inside a bag and a single transparency for the long canopy, which will need to be painted a fair bit. The parts are a bit hard probably giving away their age now but there is no flash or too much problems with ejector pin marks, the panel lines are engraved and the surface detail is refined.

Instructions: It's a long fold out sheet which has 7 large construction steps on one side that are pretty basic and easy to follow, especially given the lack of small and detail parts in this kit. Sadly you will have to come up with your own detail painting because the instructions give you absolutely no clue. The otherside of the instructions provide you with a bit of brief history and model information followed by a large four view diagram for painting and deal placement. Here the colours are provided by generic name only and shaded to tell them apart on the aircraft. A fair bit of reference will be needed to paint this aircraft up.

Colour Options: A single three tone camouflage scheme as seen on the front of box is provided for by the kit, with the example wearing Blue 04, in Soviet air force insignia. No unit or other information is provided about the aircraft. Not really satisfied by the colours of Black, Yellow Green (Sand??) and Dark Green stated by the instructions as the colour scheme, I will have to look at this a bit in more detail later. This kit was produced when little was known on the type in the West, so I am tipping they have gone off grainy photos at best - can't find a definitive reference source as I type this so might have to delve into this a bit more if I build the kit up.

Decals: Small sheet which has USSR roundels, intake warning triangles, unit badge and the fuselage numbers. There's nothing else provided. Bonus is that your Blue 04 could become any Blue two digit number. But I really don't like the look of the decals, they look blurry, horrible, pastey and simply completely out of register. The white border of the red stars is either filled in on occasions or not centred properly in the decal. Need to source aftermarket here.

Cockpit/Wheel Bay Detail: Don't expect any detail at all here, the cockpit is already integrally molded into fuselage halves, so you simply whack in a generic seat in each cockpit and a simplistic looking non descript plastic part for the instrument panel. No detail. Mercifully, there is not going to be much seen with the lack of visibility canopy, especially the rear. The wheel wells are basically filled in also.

Optional components: The short stubby swing wings are moveable, but they will have to be trapped carefully between the shoulder section of the wings, so they don't pop out of the alignment pin, keeping them in place. Looks a little too easy to stuff up.

On the Sprue Impressions: There is not a great deal to this kit on the sprue, and looks like a pretty simple weekend project to whack together. There is quite a lack of detail and a hardness about the plastic, both a result I would say of the age of this kit, and its release at a time when the Fitter was still relatively unexplored in mainstream West. Everything is pretty simple looking about the kit, particularly crisp detail.

The fuselage already has the cockpit floor and bulkhead molded integrally in it as well as the tailfins on each half. The rear section inside the fuselage needs to be painted because there is no internal exhaust housing or cone. Thankfully the front intake is blocked off to present see through, but it is going to be one deep exhaust!

The wings come in two sections, both containing upper and lower halves. The inward section (I tend to note as the shoulder) is attached to the fuselage, and the outer wing section is the swing wing part. The swing wing sub assembly is placed on a round alignment pin inside the shoulder part. So obviously you need to sub assemble the swing wing section first then glue the shoulder section over the top, trapping the non cemented swing wing within - make sense? The shoulder section already has the wing fences integrally molded, so no need to affix these. But the tailplanes come in upper and lower halves.

For stores you get just two big generic ugly underwing fuel tanks and a the kit also supplies the one piece large canopy and very simplistic looking undercarriage, as well as a couple of aerials out the front. As I said, not a lot to the kit.

Accuracy: This kit was released at a time when the Fitter was still relatively unexplored in mainstream West. Having checked a few modern shots of the aircraft clearly there are some detail things missing, ducts, vents, scoops etc placed wrongly or not actually in the kit, and so forth. The outline looks relatively okay and the measurements at a glance, and still on the sprue appear reasonably close. But don't expect a definitive replica here!

Conclusion: I really only grabbed this kit for the two seat Fitter E version and it looks like it will build up into a relatively quick easy to build aircraft. Obviously a bit of time has taken its toll on the parts and the decals need to scrapped, along with an acceptance the accuracy is not going to be definitive, but it will still be a weekend project I look forward to building! On this basis, happy to recommend but make sure you have some good reference sources close by to get the right paint job!

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