jgrease

Agreed Dave. Doesn’t seem to fit anywhere.

First off, a very Happy New Year to y’all. My work on this plane is quite the love/hate relationship- just about every time I finish a step, I have to put this thing away for a day and forget it. In any event, here’s the latest observations as I plod along, bearing in mind that none of this has been puttied yet. The nose, glass, rudder, and exhaust are just press-fit into place for these photos. Overall, it looks like a Mirage... The fit of the intake assembly to the fuselage is way better than it is on the Italeri Mirage III: The nose fits pretty well, but I think it sits slightly proud of the fuselage: And the resin exhaust: To finish up, the infamous intakes without intake ramps: After looking at the directions and studying the parts, if anyone can explain where part G49 fits into everything in Step 45, please let me know, and post a photo.

More progress - tried to fit the nose gear door and this happened : Shimmed it up inside the gear bay with some more sprue: In order to close the gun bay doors I had to cut some excess off the tops of the guns and sand down the insides of the doors: I've now applied a layer of putty around all of the openings and seams. Sanding tomorrow. John

I patched it myself and continued building it. I didn't feel like waiting 3 weeks for a replacement. It's just a continuing problem that KH has with quality control.

Thanks Alain - that hole is a "short shot" where there was not enough plastic injected into the mold. Unfortunately this isn't the first time Kitty Hawk have had a problem with their quality control.

Here's the short-shot I had on the lower left fuselage: This is the wing to fuselage join from the top: Wing join from the bottom: Assembled cockpit (prior to decals): Yes, the pilot still fits: Since these were taken I've joined the fuselage halves. Photos to follow. John

I have been using Tamiya Extra Thin with no issues.

If you can point me to an alternative to photobucket, sure thing! John

My observations mid-build: - Cockpit - goes together well. Looks good aside from the missing throttle. Step 4 has you install A7 into the instrument panel, but I found that A7 fits better into the IP shroud, A5 which isn’t seen until step 59. - Almost all the photos I’ve looked at show the large forward gear bay door (G50) closed on the ground, meaning you should leave off G56 in step 9. - Wings - the tabs for the wings are very tight but provide an excellent join to the fuselage once you snap them in. What I’ve chosen to do is install the wing top pieces C1 and C3 into the fuselage halves prior to joining those halves together. By doing so you get literally no gap. - Forward gear bay - aside from glue, nothing is holding the bay assembly into the fuselage assembly. I wound up putting some cut sprue between the bottom of the cockpit and the top of the gear bay just to reinforce it. - Fuselage - once again, Kitty Hawk provide little, if any, positive joins for the fuselage halves. Why can’t they mold in larger pegs or some kind of stronger locating parts? There’s no reason you should have to wrestle the two halves into alignment. I’m still happy with the progress KH is making in their kits, but it’s disappointing to see the same issues come up again and again, such as no intake trunking and the lack of positive locating points. At the moment, I will rate assembly through Step 29 as 7/10. John

Correct Dave. Thanks.

Someone on FB posted a very useful photo of the differences between the fin tips for the rudder, but photobucket will turn it into a fuzzy blob. Anyone have a way to bring it here?

I'm hoping we can us this thread for corrections and information, much like the F-5 page became. I for one am fairly impressed with this kit - the molding is superior to the Italeri Mirage III and it looks like KH has learned from past issues. The one constant is lack of QC on Kitty Hawk's part - my kit had a short shot on the lower rear fuselage on the right fuselage half. Aside from that, the resin pilot looks incredible and the kit was packaged well. I'm starting mine tonight.

I'm actually quite surprised - UPS says scheduled delivery for 12-17. While I'm sure that the shipping was folded into the price, it's going to be nice to get something that quickly.

Well a tracking number was created but nothing's moved according to my UPS tracking. Delivery estimate is next Friday.

Probably get a key chain - the standard item for these ebay scams.