When you paint the model exterior stuff a bit of foam into the white area to prevent overspray, and you will have an easy time of it. Don’t worry about painting these, as they are opaque and the fit is superb. I chose to leave them off.īeginning with the intake parts, you must install the bright white trunking inside the gunship gray lower fuselage. Four radar reflector boxes are provided if you want to use them. Before assembling the fuselage halves, open the locator holes on the inner surface of the lower wings if you are planning to use the optional external racks. When at rest, the actual aircraft tends to have these “park” at neutral anyway, so it is appropriate. Main fuselage components consist of an upper and lower section no separate control surfaces are provided, which simplifies assembly. The lower seeker on the chin, which is a particularly fine bit of clear plastic with the correct window apertures, covers the miniature seeker array, which is molded into the lower fuselage Careful painting of both clear parts is a must. My recommendation is to leave these off until the model is complete.Īs for the clear parts, you have the canopy with the strengthening bow correctly molded on the inside. I know, I tried… The aft portion of the tub has more detail, and when installed, looks “busy.” The forward swing arms for the canopy are very fragile, but the actual pivot hinge assembly takes up the stress when installed. If you plan on using the pilot figure, it needs to be installed along with the seat NOW verses at the end of the build, as the figure’s legs will not fit into the footwells after the cockpit is completed. Although a pilot is included, this would have been a nice addition for those modelers who don’t use figures in their aircraft. The lightweight Martin-Baker ejection seat features everything but the harness. Separate throttle and control grips are provided, and the instrument panel and side panels are very detailed decals. The cockpit interior is more detailed and crisp than those produced by other manufacturers. The black parts are semi-matte, and in some cases really don’t need to be painted, although I did so out of habit even though the molded-in color was very effective in the end. The exterior parts are the correct color of gunship gray which helps the younger or less skilled modeler make a nice kit. The white needs little or no painting, and looks the part when installed. Of particular note are the intake sections, the weapons bay, all three wheel wells, and the landing gear parts. For example, the white plastic is very opaque and used to excellent effect. In my opinion, this is the definitive new F-35 kit.Ī note on the color plastic parts: a lot of thought went into which color each part was molded in. This is a lot of accolades, but they are accurate. The decals are great, the plastic superb and crisp, and the appearance of the finished model is stunning. This kit is a gem from the excellent packaging to the multi-color parts, which actually make it easier to build (as explained below). This 1/72nd scale F-35A is the most recent addition to the stable of excellence. Academy’s models have a great reputation these days.
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