TrumpeterE.E. Lightning F.3

[KOTR]

Well, my entry for the 10th anniversary just arrived today: as you can guess from the topic title, its going to be Trumpeters Lightning. I'll most likely use decals from Xtradecal, as I chicken a bit out by the thought of making such a huge plane in NM finish, otherwise I'll look into what can be done with some additional plastic and wire. Pictures to follow later

[Jack]

  KOTR said:

Well, my entry for the 10th anniversary just arrived today: as you can guess from the topic title, its going to be Trumpeters Lightning. I'll most likely use decals from Xtradecal, as I chicken a bit out by the thought of making such a huge plane in NM finish, otherwise I'll look into what can be done with some additional plastic and wire. Pictures to follow later

 

Hey Michael, welche Lightning wird es sein, eine camo version?

Ich selber werde versuchen eine Geilenkirchen Machine zu bauen

 

Gruss,

J.

[KOTR]

XR749/DA Lightning Training Flight (LTF) MSG/Camo Grey. RAF Binbrook 1985

[ruzlkampf]

Coool, can't wait to see it go together! Nice choice of markings.

[TimW]

Cool! I just started one of these...the first thing I'm going to do is replace the seat

 

TimW

[TimW]

OK...pictures soon. I have gotten the wings on and am ready to start painting. Pictures to follow shortly.

 

Trumpeter really left a lot of stuff off this....it's up to the modeller how much you want to add, but there are all sorts of errors that frankly shouldn't have happened in a a/c this scale--for example, wrong shaped instrument shroud, no option for a aerial refueling probe (which was on a number of F3s but not mandatory so maybe I'm complaining too much here).

 

Assorted vents and shrouds on the fuselage missing. Grrr.

 

Anyway, it is not all that complex a kit and thus far is going together quiet easily. The biggest engineering mess up is that the air intake trunking does not match up with the nose section the way it should. There's a gap that requires plastic card to fix (at minimum).

 

Tim W.

[ColinR]

I built this one earlier this year , and you right , for £100 they really missed out a LOT of detail ,

 

If you don't mind some advice/tips

 

Remember for an F3 you'll have to lengthen the cable trunking adjacent to the missile pylons ,

 

Watch the wings , on mine the wing tips had a tendency to warp upwards at the tip .

 

The seat got additional details thanks to some miliput , and an old PE set ment for the MB7 seat in the F-4

 

There's a lot of scope for additional details on the inside of the canopy , its bare in the kit , and in reality it had locking rails , catches etc

 

As for the Intake trunking , I took the easy way out and made a FOD guard - cowards way out I know

 

I also added the missing scoops and aeriels on the belly - most of my reference came from Ian Black's book, "the Last of the Lightnings" - really a must - masses of close up pics

[TimW]

  Scotsman said:

I built this one earlier this year , and you right , for £100 they really missed out a LOT of detail ,

 

If you don't mind some advice/tips

 

Remember for an F3 you'll have to lengthen the cable trunking adjacent to the missile pylons ,

 

Yep, found that on somebody's online F3 build.. would have missed it otherwise.

 

  Scotsman said:

Watch the wings , on mine the wing tips had a tendency to warp upwards at the tip .

 

Mine are OK thus far.

 

  Scotsman said:

The seat got additional details thanks to some miliput , and an old PE set ment for the MB7 seat in the F-4

 

I put a Mk5 seat in mine...maybe not totally accurate, but it was available and easy to get.

 

  Scotsman said:

There's a lot of scope for additional details on the inside of the canopy , its bare in the kit , and in reality it had locking rails , catches etc

 

Yeah, again there's a great online F3 build I found here that has been very helpful:

 

http://www.geoffcoughlin.com/page17.htm

 

  Scotsman said:

As for the Intake trunking , I took the easy way out and made a FOD guard - cowards way out I know

 

I used the plasticard option...not 100 percent but once it's together it took care of the really big problem of "minding the gap."

 

  Scotsman said:

I also added the missing scoops and aeriels on the belly - most of my reference came from Ian Black's book, "the Last of the Lightnings" - really a must - masses of close up pics

 

I drilled out some of the various vents...need to review and figure out where the shrouds need to go as the kit isn't very helpful that that sort of detail. I also plan to add the chemical heaters/wiring etc. to the canopy--it's just too visible to leave off. I'm raiding the spare parts box for some extra detail for the instrument shroud, etc.

 

It's progressing, though, and in the end I think will look OK but it is an example of Trumpeter at its most frustrating.

 

At least it had the replacement decals so I don't have to deal with the stenciling in Trumpeter's unique brand of "Engrish."

 

Cheers,

 

TimW

[KOTR]

After getting a little sidetracked (Grumman Panther vacbuild) waiting for the decals, I am fully back on the Lightning. In the meantime I identified the main issues I want to deal with this build:

 

- the rear end of the main wheel wells aren't deep enough for my taste. At the same time, I'll add some hydraulic lines etc.

- lenghtening cable ducts

- the AB flameholders do not share much similarities with the real deal

- the cockpit is a bit difficult to describe, its a bit to narrow due to the insert it should go in before the whole shebang goes into the fuselage.

- the seat frame looks fine to me, but the rest is a bit underdetailed. I'll add a parachute box from a Revell Phantom, seatbelts will be from the Eduards set for beforementioned kit, and a handcrafted backrest.

- not exactly necessary, but I sawed off the front wheel fork and will refine some bits. NMF wheel struts + doublesided forks = headache, that's why I started sawing

- I don't know if I'll do some stuff on the front wheel well. something disturbes me about it, but I can't put the finger on it.

 

In the meantime, I'll have some thoughts about the missppeled maintenance stickers

 

At the moment I am working on the wheel wells, the main wheel wells are now the right depths to my eye, now I'm filling, sanding and detailing the holes

[TimW]

Here's mine so far...there's a lot I'd do differently if/when I do another one. I was rather disappointed at the number of problems the kit had. I am not at all an expert on the Lightning, but when I did a bit of research I realized that there was way more fixing needed than I was willing to do right now, so I limited mine to (1) opening various vents and fashioning covers where needed (2) adding some detail to the cockpit as well as replacing the seat and (3) extending the duct fairing as has been noted. There are issues with the decals--the "Engrish" spellings may have been fixed, but some size issues persist. I went with the kit decals anyway.

[TimW]

And one more. It's clear that there are other fixes required to make this one really accurate. Though I think it looks pretty good even with minor additions, given what Trumpeter charges combined with Stevens' markup, this one should have been buildable OOB without a lot of fixes. :angry:

[DaveJ]

Looking great, Tim!

 

I'm with you on the fact that Trumpeter could've done a much better job with this kit, at least from everything I've read about it's issues, but you've got a real winner coming together either way. Top shelf!

[TimW]

Ah, another fun "what were they thinking?" moment...turns out there are only enough decals to put the markings on ONE missile of each type; the Lightning carries two missiles. Why not enough decals to cover (at least) each missile?

 

WTF was Trumpeter thinking?

 

Still, it's fixable...but will take some time as I have to let the decals dry that they did provide and then paint the rest of the markings.

 

This is the worst thing I've seen in some time when it comes to providing basic kit necessities. I mean, it does not look like a mistake.

 

That said, overall I think this will still be a visually impressive kit...should have it wrapped up in a week or so, what with all my other projects. Pictures will follow.

 

Tim W

[TimW]

Aha! I see the F2A and F6 variant is scheduled for release this September.

 

http://www.cybermodeler.com/news/news090608b.shtml

 

 

Sure hope they don't repeat some of the mistakes of the original kit.

 

TimW

[TimW]

And it's done....despite the issues with the kit, I like it and like how it looks.