Scale Models: kinetic

This the A6-E Intruder from Kinetic. I just can't seem to get enough of US Navy aircraft can I? :)

It was a good build. However there a couple of fitting problems especially in the cockpit tub. It just wouldn't fit when the 2 fuselage halves were put together. I had to sand/shave/slice off certain parts of the tub to get it to fit. The ejection seats, when put in the cockpit, look a bit too low (based on reference photos), so I propped it up with some styrene glued underneath the seat.

The nose landing gear and strut didn't look as busy as the real one, so I added some wires to simulate hydraulic lines. There are also quite a number of mistakes in the instruction sheet. One of them I remember is that the instruction sheet tells you to put the fuel tanks under the outer wing pylon and the bombs (forgot what they're called) under the inner wing pylon. When I looked at the reference photos, it was the other way round (bombs on the outside). I'm not sure in real life if the positions can be swapped but I decided to follow with the real aircraft. So for you guys who plan to build this model, please do research and collect some reference photos and don't follow the instruction sheet blindly :)

On this model I used the same method as I did for the S3 Viking previously, that is to sand away and remove the seam line between the canopy (in this case the front canopy window) and the aircraft fuselage.

The surface detail was poor. I wasn't impressed with the panel lines. Most of the panel lines were too wide and shallow, which makes it hard to apply a wash. Other panel lines just stopped halfway. I decided to improve the appearance of the panel lines by rescribing everything. I did this by running the scribing tool along the existing panel with several passes, using more pressure with each pass, thereafter, using a 400 grit sanding film, I sanded on the surface around the panel lines. After several rounds of doing this, you'll realise that the panel line becomes deeper (because you're continually scribing) and narrower (because you're sanding the area around it). This will make it easier for the wash to flow afterwards.

Also, the tail of the model was completely void of any detail. So all panel lines were scribed from scratch with reference to photos of the real aircraft.

The panel lines for the leading edge slats were also rescribed as they were inaccurate.

Overall this was a tedious build as a lot of preparation needed to be done to the surface before any priming or painting could commence. I really wish the surface detail could be as good as Hasegawa or Tamiya. I also didn't feel that the shape of the aircraft looked like the real one. It seems to me that the real aircraft has a fatter and shorter nose (I could be wrong, A6 experts please comment). I would think the Revell A6 looked more like the real thing (but that one doesn't have recessed panel lines and a wing fold mechanism). A point to note is that the Kinetic A6 was released after the Prowler, and I suspect several of the parts could have been recycled as a cost saving move, and hence this could be the reason for some innacuracies.

This is the completed model of the new Kinetic 1/48 scale S-2E Tracker, or better known as the "Stoof".

Kinetic just released this kit in early 2011. I walked into my favorite hobby store sometime in March (or April, I can't remember...) and the owner recommended this kit. I grabbed it! I knew that no other manufacturer made this aircraft in 1/48 scale, so this is a first! (And I heard that Kinetic is coming up with the C-2 Greyhound in 1/48, so I'm keeping my eye out for it...)

This is a high quality picture of the real thing (Copyright of Jose M. Ramos)

The kit took me a record of approx. 3 months to finish. I only build it on weekends due to my day job. And even on weekends, its just a full Sunday and half a Saturday devoted to model building. So I don't have a lot of time to do this. If I did it everyday, I probably would have finished it in about 18 to 20 days.

The reason for completing the model in record time was that this time I used more efficient methods of building, and I also disciplined myself to spend more time building it and less time admiring it :)

To be more efficient or productive so that you can finish your model faster, you should:

Try to assemble/consolidate parts that are to be painted in the same color and just paint them in one shot.
Don't waste time and effort on areas that cannot be seen once assembled.

I bought the wooden base from an art shop and the carrier deck is just a simple printout pasted onto it.

The main landing gear hydraulic lines were made from flexible wire.

An oil wash was given to the wing fold mechanism to bring out the details.

The little clear tube you see below is used to support the model. Yes, this model is a tail sitter. I mean, just look at the geometry of the model. I don't think any amount of nose weight is enough to make it sit upright. Unfortunately I didn't use fishing weight. I'm not sure if that would be enough to bring the nose down. I used blue tac (lots of it). Apparently it is not enough. You have been warned...

The problem is that there isn't a lot of space where you can put nose weight. You can't put it in the cockpit, otherwise you can see it through the windows. The nose cone doesn't offer a lot of space either. And the nose wheel being all the way at the front doesn't help the situation. The only other place I can think of is behind the cockpit, at the cockpit door. But you have to add lots of weight. Inside the engine, just behind the cylinder, there is some space where you can put weight also.

If all else fails, just follow my method and drill a hole on the underside towards the rear and stick a clear tube into it. Nobody will notice it :)

Fishing line was used to make the antenna wires.

This is my second model from Kinetic that has ended up as a tail sitter. My first one was the E-2C Hawkeye. I thought I had learnt my lesson from that. Well... apparently not.

There are many reference pictures you can find on the Internet for the S2. But unfortunately most of them are not of high quality. This is an old plane that has long been retired from service. Photographs taken during that time certainly won't match today's digital cameras (even the box art is a low quality photograph). The most recent photos taken of this plane happen to come from museums, where the aircraft is preserved. But the museum planes do not accurately portray the aircraft in operation at that time. The aircraft may have been totally repainted, or have certain parts removed. So finding good quality and relevant reference pictures has been quite a challenge for this project.

I know from online forums that there are several inaccuracies in the Kinetic kit, but I didn't bother to go and fix them (I believe one of them is the fuel jettison nozzle being on the wrong side on one of the engines)

Kinetic also did not supply any parts for the search light. It was just a clear part, and inside was total emptiness! So I scratch built the search light to add some detail. I think this is one area of improvement they should look into.

Honestly, I don't even know if the landing gear door edges are red. The instruction sheet doesn't say, and the reference pictures I have show that some are red and some aren't. So its anyone's guess on this particular aircraft. But going by US Navy standards, I believe gear door edges are painted red for safety reasons. So I decided to paint them red to make it look more interesting.

The side windows are big, which means you can see quite a bit of the cockpit detail. You should spend some time detailing up the cockpit (if you want to go in that direction). Unfortunately I didn't spend a lot of time on the cockpit, thinking it would be like the E-2C (where you can't see any of the cockpit once the kit was put together). I realized to my horror later that this wasn't the case. But hey, at least I added scratch built seat belts :)