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Roden O-2 Skymaster due in November


Kagemusha

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Fortunately not only has ziggy mentioned that AOA would making 1/32nd O-2 decals, but stencils as well.   Good news!

Just to clarify, I'm probably not doing a separate stencil sheet release. Plan is to just include them on the main sheet (similar to the AOA O-1, T-28, and OH-6 sheets).

 

As usual for my preference for Vietnam War schemes, there should be at least one, maybe two, VNAF O-2 options included in addition to the predominent USAF options.

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In stock at Sprue Brothers.

Mike

Figures, now I'm annoyed. I figured it would still be some time before they show up in the US so I had ordered direct from Europe end of November and the kit still shows no progress in shipping. Had I waited and ordered from SB when they came in stock I'd already have the kit by this weekend. Lesson learned.

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I wouldn't trust their identification:

The Don't Shoot one with the many Snoopy markings is a modern warbird/museum scheme.

The black one ("Unicnown Unit") I'm not sure what it's from. I don't recall seeing black camoed O-2s in Vietnam carrying TAC badges or with large ghost nose art (which looks more like AC-130 nose art).

The camo one is an O-2B (67-21452).

Follow up on my earlier post: as suspected, that black scheme provided in the kit is also really a modern warbird scheme (N2209X):

1832058.jpg?v=v40

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So I got mine today, as promised I'm doing a little first impressions

 

Packaging is the usual throw it all in one bag affair we've come to expect form the cheaper manufacturers. In my case this resulted in a couple of loose parts and some badly damaged engine mounts.

 

39032454991_08b6dbdf97_c.jpg

 

Decals aren't horrible but they're not very crisp either, I'm going to go for aftermarket on these.

 

25161729948_d346847340_c.jpg

38146892655_1826c36d97_c.jpg

25161736018_062c214863_c.jpg

 

Now, how does it fit? Quite well actually. It's by no means perfect but with a bit of careful clamping you should be able to keep the filler to a minimum.

The top parts of the fuselage that review mentioned are indeed very thin and if handled too roughly they could easily warp. However this also means that aligning them shouldn't be very difficult.

 

25161741358_85eea8a323_c.jpg

 

As you can see the plastic on the fuselage is quite grainy and some of the panel lines on it aren't very pronounced, so some rescribing will be needed. As far as I can tell it's only this bad on the fuselage, the rest of the parts are a a lot more crisp.

 

24168049257_6930f3cc43_c.jpg

38996025292_20e675570a_c.jpg

 

Wing section fits on pretty well. The gap at the top might be avoidable with some clamping, worst part is the underside but that should be easily fixed with a bit of filler.

 

38996016842_b9e40941ba_c.jpg

39032489511_091ba3c9ae_c.jpg

 

And here's the main parts stuck together. Booms seem to fit quite well too. All in all it's not a perfect fit but I've seen way worse than this.

 

38996022242_acce822a0e_c.jpg

 

If you like the plane I'd say go for it, just get some aftermarket decals as soon as they're available.

 

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Cool!  Just what we wanted to hear, and absolutely nothing out of the ordinary I would come to expect from a $50 kit. From what Ive seen a really great value, and with some suitable AM decals I think this will be a real winner. 

 

 

To me, so far the OOB decals look like the worst of it in most cases.   Mine should be here before the end of the week! 

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I don't care for the grainy plastic, their O-1 had that same pebbly appearance.

 

The lower wing surface gap to the fuselage looks like someone took a hacksaw to it, doesn't even look like a straight line.

 

Looks like typical crappy quality/accuracy decals they usually have in their kits. Also see even "fuel" is typoed.

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I don't care for the grainy plastic, their O-1 had that same pebbly appearance.

 

The lower wing surface gap to the fuselage looks like someone took a hacksaw to it, doesn't even look like a straight line.

 

Looks like typical crappy quality/accuracy decals they usually have in their kits. Also see even "fuel" is typoed.

 

 

For sure ziggy, this one needs AOAs attention bad. Those decals not only have some pretty bad typos, but as was noted previously, they are not very crisp either, and seem to even have some registration issues. 

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Cool, thank you "Carrot"

an idea: may be the fuselage parts can be reinforced before cutting them from their runners because they still have the perfect geometry.
Cross sections parts can be added if not enough provided in the kit or adding some sprue parts or other in the angles.

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