Paolo Maglio Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 got the kit a couple od days ago and was nicely impressed by its quality. Will build it as this one: have started removing ejection marks from the inside of the intakes, very easy with a drop of Surfacer 500 and gentle sanding Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 dry fitting of major parts show all fits very well, including MLG bay, problems in gfitting are: 1- air intakes that must be glued after you put the two parts inside the fuselage 2- front gear bay need some shaving to its external sides to fit 3- landing gears legs are made of many parts, holes are too big for most of the pins, major care is needed! before gluing the nozzle you better to sand it around from both inside and outside to make it thinner and to scale, something I forget to do also mind to open holes for ILS antennas on the tail, these are both for Italian and Brazilian aiframes while instructions call them for Brazialians only Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 cockpit is quite good in detail while seat have some nasty pins just over the headrest, difficoult to polish but not impossible Orpheus pods: we got 2 in a box! unfortunately these are off scale, 5 mm too short and 2 mm too thin! Please choose a scheme without the need of these or use those made by DACO. ACOL Upgraded airframes use Receligth instead. Litening is also widely used today. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 ballast is needed in the nose cone, don't know how much since Kinetic is not telling and geear legs are very long to put together, so I put a lot of weight just to be sure ;) shape wise kit is spot on to my eys, the detail of the surface on the sides and wings is also the best ever seen in Kinetic kit, so far, I only regret that some panel lines and most of the rivets disappear on top and on lower part of the fuselage, you better to rescribe these before assembling the kit. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
sierrascale Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Wow, nice work! Wasn't that interested before, but now I'll have to pick up both the kit and decal. bob sierrascale Quote Link to post Share on other sites
polar bear Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Thanks for review. I'll stay tune. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 two of the trees come from the F-16 boxing and include several weapons, AIM-9L and GBU will be handy while the rest will go in the spare box, unfortunately JDAM are not included neither the much needed Lizard boms (aftermarkets incoming??) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 I hope many of you will appreciate some reference pix... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 Note: there is no clear part #15 on threes, clear lens for HUD should be #5 instead :D Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Laurent Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Great start ! This "Black Cats" AMX seems to be an ACOL so I believe you'll have to sand the nose tip a little. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 3, 2015 Author Share Posted May 3, 2015 (edited) Great start ! This "Black Cats" AMX seems to be an ACOL so I believe you'll have to sand the nose tip a little. Yes I will :thumbsup:/> About photos: those on the ground are by me or my good friend D. Gulinelli, the air to air shot is by Italin Air Force. Edited May 5, 2015 by Paolo Maglio Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 5, 2015 Author Share Posted May 5, 2015 went on building the cockpit, HUD in PE is very nice but I think I will replace the upper glass with a thinner clear sheet of plastic front fuselage assembly was smooth, you can easily add the cockpit tub later from behind, as I said only the front gear bay need some trimming here Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 5, 2015 Author Share Posted May 5, 2015 while the photo here above is less than acceptable I was happy with my intake assembly and painting on this side of the fuselage only I found a thin but deep gap while attaching the air intake, so I masked the rivets detail with tape and filled the gap with Mr. Surfacer 500. dry fitting fron and rear fuselage shows it will be a fine joint.... more soon Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 That cockpit section to fuselage join on the left side looks.. well.. creative.. :-) I suppose Kinetic is following existing panel lines. Nice to see a good kit of the AMX. The AMX remind me of the SAAB aircraft that never were, the B3LA. I will be following your build and maybe one day I will get an AMX of my own. /E Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 5, 2015 Author Share Posted May 5, 2015 Exacly, before swithching to Embraer, Alenia was working with SAAB as a common project... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erik_g Posted May 5, 2015 Share Posted May 5, 2015 Can´t say I am sad it never came to fruition, since the end result at the Swedish end was the Gripen. The B3LA would have been a, by the standards of today, fairly (for our needs) useless aircraft, unless it had been upgraded with a radar, which had made it slightly less useless. But at the same time, the plans were to have a light attack aircraft to complement a new heavy attack aircraft based on the JA 37 Viggen, and that combo would during the 80's probably have been quite good. The twin seater AMX could be used for a nice SwAF what-if project. /E Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 here you are some of the add on needed to do an ACOL variant: stiffer plates and GPS antenna. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 10, 2015 Author Share Posted May 10, 2015 good morning, made some more progress on this kit, here we go: I made 4 pins to attach the wings to fuselgae since thos ein the kit are too small and useless the bottom of the fuselage need some sanding and extensive rescribing since details here are way too soft to show trought paint Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 10, 2015 Author Share Posted May 10, 2015 instructions fail to tell you about the interior cover for the Vulacan gun , but the piece is in the box, if you are going to build the Italian AMX please glue this piece (I think is #F22) immediatly! all the main parts are now on and it really looks good the nozzle was thinned from bot aoutside and inside Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 10, 2015 Author Share Posted May 10, 2015 (edited) I made the cover for the ECS avionics with a piece of titanium foil by Hasegawa Edited May 10, 2015 by Paolo Maglio Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Parabat Posted May 10, 2015 Share Posted May 10, 2015 This is awesome! I love this pugnacious little aircraft and you're doing a great job convincing me to buy this kit! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 12, 2015 Author Share Posted May 12, 2015 (edited) Today I received the Caracal decal sheet besides the very nice options offered on it (that you can see in these profiles here below) it also cerrects a few mistakes made on the kit's decals: 1- Italian fuselage numbers are 0,25 mm too short 2- Italian rondels are 1 mm too big 3- on kit's decals slime lights are missing! so for any Italian option I suggest to buy these decals Edited May 12, 2015 by Paolo Maglio Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 13, 2015 Author Share Posted May 13, 2015 Dry fitted tyres to gear, beside the facr that the holes are to large for the pin I found thst wheel is too small compared to tyre. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 13, 2015 Author Share Posted May 13, 2015 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted May 16, 2015 Author Share Posted May 16, 2015 I made the stiffer plates (on ACOL variant only) with vinil tape then masked the main landing gear legs and sprayed a first coat of paint Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.