Zactoman

Stop torturing yourself! The only way to make this kit completely accurate is to start from scratch. My correction set is meant to improve the model within the constraints of using the existing inaccurate kit. You have made some impressive and ambitious modifications to try to make the model more accurate but I worry that some modelers might be hesitant to build the kit with the correction thinking it won't be good enough without a whole bunch of extra work... An almost OOB build using the correction set will get you a nice looking MiG-29 that is much more accurate than the stock kit. It is unfortunate that you weren't able to use my full length intakes. They do address the forward spacing of the intakes.Alexander's beautiful forward intake parts were not made to fit the stock Revell kit and it took lots of frustrating adjustments to merge them with my existing intake parts. If you were to build another using the new intakes, I think you would be pleased with the fit and results. Again, the correction was made to work with the existing kit...I think if you compare the kit to photos and published drawings you would find that the position of the little intakes (and entire corrected engine trunking) is more or less correct and that the main gear wells and location of the struts are too far forward (don't try moving the gear wells!). The recommended position of the little intakes may not look right when compared to the gear struts but is correct in relation to the corrected engine trunking. Again, impressive work on fixing everything. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished model. Cheers! Chris

Here's an interesting article by Wade Meyers: LOU IV: I'm Not Singin' the Blues ... Regardless, green or blue, it's a nice build and nice photography! Cheers, Chris

First let me say that I would assume that any Flanker B kit that you buy new at this point would be the 're-tooled' version. I'd think that most retailers would have already sold their older stock and now have the newer kits.If you buy one from an individual, say on Ebay, it might be the older tooling. Unfortunately there's no way of telling from the outside of the box. I'm also assuming that all of the new Flanker B kits have all of the 're-tooled' parts included in the Su-27UB kit and not just the intakes. Those re-tooled parts include the canopy, nosecone, intakes and exhausts. Comparison pictures of all of these can be seen on this Su-27UB thread: http://s362974870.on...dpost&p=1547234 (see post #46). Comparison pics of the original parts to my parts can be found in the giant Flanker thread on ARC: http://s362974870.on...showtopic=39249 Or if you want to save some time check the Su-27 folder of my Photobucket account: http://s79.photobuck...u-27/?start=all Now, if you get the new tooling, here is the order I would personally recommend upgrading (Decals are a given unless you want the schemes included in the kit): 1. Canopy - Though they 'fixed' the canopy, they only did so by straightening the bulge/bubble of the windscreen portion. Overall the canopy is still too bubbled and looks slightly animated. My canopy corrects the shape and also includes lots of internal framing detail. 2. Cockpit - This is a personal choice as I am drawn to cockpits. The kit cockpit is mediocre but OK if you're not a cockpit buff. Aires, Blackbox and Eduard all blow the kit pit away. 3. Wingtip pylons - The kit ones are just so wrong... Lots of people do build it with stock pylons and the kit still looks impressive. 4. Nosecone - Though the re-tooled nosecone has a better profile, they didn't fix the panel lines behind the cone. The dielectric panel on the kit part is much too narrow and should be more square. This wouldn't be a big issue but that panel is going to be painted either white or green and really stands out. Rescribing would be difficult as the cone line is in the wrong spot and would need to be rescribed as well. 5. Missiles - As with cockpits, I'm drawn to weapons. The missiles that Alexander created are simply awesome (Comparison pics here: http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=181932 See posts #84 and 112). The kit missiles could be used but I'd at least recommend modifying the Alamos as the span on the front fins is about 1/2" too long ( http://s362974870.on...ndpost&p=475605 see post 796). 6. Intakes - The 're-tooled' intakes have the correct shape but the surface detail is weak. The louvered vents on the sides are a prominent feature of the Su-27 in my eye and the kit parts just fall short. The extra, more accurate detail of the aftermarket is also a big plus. 7. Exhausts - The re-tooled exhausts are a big improvement. The kit exhausts could be re-worked to be nice but would take a lot to match the aftermarket. I'd at least remove the big raised warts/rivets. The Aires exhausts are very nice. 8. Pylons - The full set (which does include the wingtip pylons). The kit pylons are weak, especially the centerline pylons. The aftermarket are sweet. Comparison pics here: http://s362974870.on...pic=192896&st=0 (see posts #118 and 125) 9. Wheel wells - The Aires wells are awesome. The kit parts could be detailed with lots of wire and stuff. As I said previously, I'd recommend at the very least replacing the canopy. The other items are discretionary. Note that I included items the are most visible from the top without picking up the model and put the intakes, pylons and wheel wells further down the list. If by chance you get the early tooled kit, I'd put the canopy, intakes and nosecone tied at #1, all mandatory... Cheers, Chris

J/N/P is on the list. I've just been too busy with other stuff to get to it yet.

This really limits your choices if you want a really accurate modern Russian build.The Trump MiG-21 is a nice kit as is the MiG-23 but both are older airframes if you want an "opponent" for something modern like the F-16. Personally, I'd put a MiG-29 next to an F-16 and an Su-27 next to an F-15 if I were matching them up for size and role. Yes the MiG-29 gets expensive if you want anything remotely accurate. I'm still proud of my OOB Revell kit though. If you just look at it from the front and don't pay too much attention, it's still an impressive model... More pics here: http://www.zactomodels.com/html/Mig/Mig.htm If you don't want to spend a whole bunch and are willing to overlook some accuracy issues, the Su-27 Flanker B might be your best bet. They can be found for around $90 (Ebay or Hobbystuff Depot) Just how much you accurize it is up to you. I would at the very least replace the canopy. $32 +S&H I'd also leave the missiles off unless you are willing to replace them or invest a lot of time modifying them. HTH Chris

I've seen better...

You may want to re-read that Wikipedia quote. They say that the MiG-29 " remains in use by the Russian Air Force as well as in many other nations.", not the MiG-29M.As far as I know there were only a few Ms built and nobody bought them (including the Russian Air Force). India bought some MiG-29Ks. So, there's not much you can do with a MiG-29M other than the prototype paint schemes or 'what-if's. That being said, the Trump MiG-29M is a better OOB kit than their Su-27. It's a newer kit with better details and surface detail done by their 'A team' rather than the 'B team' (read "Mad-Riveter") that got ahold of the Su-27 tooling. Despite this, the Su-27 makes for a very impressive build especially if you give some aftermarket TLC. If you really want to do a production MiG-29 and have a choice of markings you are best off using the old Revell kit and throwing some Zactomodels upgrades at it.

What a sweet, sweet build....... Intense, awesome, mind-blowing, etc., etc. etc. Congratulations!

Yes, they tweaked the original but I wouldn't say they made it more accurate but possibly 'more presentable'. I'll start by saying that both kits have drastically undersized exhausts. That is the big problem. How to transition from accurate sized intakes to the undersized exhausts is where both kits made compromises, both inaccurate. The original tooling had engine tunnels that were almost accurate when viewed from the side but included an exhaust adapter piece at the rear of the tunnel that stepped down from big to small, with big and unsightly steps. That rear piece with the small exhausts threw the whole look of the rear off. What they did on the 'corrected' tooling was to taper the entire the engine tunnel from just behind the front intake part and include a rear exhaust adapter that was closer to the real thing. In doing so the entire side of the engine tunnels view became inaccurate. The following picture is a bit misleading in that the top picture, labeled 'old tool' is only original between the intake and the rear tunnel piece. It has my corrected rear engine tunnel attached. The lower picture has an underlay of the retooled Revell kit compared to my correction. Neither of the pics show the complete original kit with the stepped adapter piece. You can see the 'corrected' adapter piece in the lower underlay. Picture that adapter stepping all the way from the outer profile of my correction to the small exhaust. When I started my correction I wasn't aware of the retooling and was using the old tool. That is why the above picture is labeled as it is. I ended up including the forward portion of the engine tunnel as well and recently combined a corrected intake assembly with that froward tunnel part: It's a lot of resin... HTH Chris

Let me again say that I don't know Ra'anan and would have defended you if the shoe was on the other foot. I sincerely believe that what you are doing is very wrong, unethical and most likely copyright infringement. Gluing together his parts and making a few small changes doesn't change the fact that he created the original patterns. If you are claiming that he didn't and they are just modified kit parts then you should have taken the same route. I have thoroughly explained my feelings on the differences between modifying a plastic kit part to enhance that kit vs. 'borrowing' parts from competing aftermarket companies. Enhancing plastic kit parts doesn't harm the sales of that company. In many cases I have had people buy a plastic kit only after the corrections became available. Borrowing aftermarket parts harms the company you took it from by either reducing their sales or undercutting their investments in their tooling. I didn't think that my business practices were being disputed. Why have I used some modified kit parts? Of the few parts that did start out as plastic, mostly to insure that the aftermarket parts would fit the original kit. The vast majority of my products were completely scratchbuilt because that was the best way to create more accurate parts than those in the original kits. If you are interested you can see in-progress pictures of almost every aspect of all of my products in the various threads in the Zactoforum on ARC: http://s362974870.on...p?showforum=176 Or if you just want to see the pictures you can surf through my Photobucket account: http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j145/Zactoman/ I certainly do hope that you and Ra'anan come to an equitable agreement and share the outcome with us. I also hope you will consider the thoughts I tried to convey about using your competitors patterns for future products and avoid doing so. Just put yourself in their shoes... That said, assuming issues like this don't occur in the future, I wish you the best of luck in your venture. It's a tough way to make a living.

I have used a few modified plastic kit parts as the basis for some of my products. The vast majority of my products are completely scratchbuilt. None of my products have used any competitive aftermarket parts. I agree that this topic deserves a thread of its own, I also think there should be a link provided in this thread with a brief explanation of the dispute. After all, it was pointed out that this entire thread is essentially an advertisement for E-Resin. While I agree that it shouldn't be up to the public to decide the outcome, they should be aware and be able to make a comparison to decide for themselves and with their wallets. First the Isra parts: The E-Resin part: "Templates"? I think the pictures speak for themselves...

Wow Brian! You are really doing a great job and building a model that is sure to be a total eye-catcher when done. I hope to see it in-person some day. This build is especially rewarding for me seeing so many Zactomodels parts on such a great build. Bravo!

Let me point out that I don't know Ra'anan. I did see him at an IPMS Nationals and said hello. Had the tables been turned and Eric had created the original part and Ra'anan was using it without his permission I would have come to Eric's defense. Ra'anan used the word "steeling" (sp). I have been using the word "borrowing" but stated that I wouldn't do the same because I consider it to be stealing. A point I am trying to make is that it is much more expensive for Ra'anan to run his business because he is paying to have CAD work and SLAs created. Whether your product is competitive or not, it's cheaper for you to exist as a business if you 'borrow' other companies parts to use as templates. Let me try to put this situation in simpler terms so others might understand my point of view: Lets say that "Joe Modeler" wants to produce this resin exhaust and market it. Let's also say that Ra'anan's part doesn't exist, there is no suitable part to use as a 'template' and the kit part just won't do. Is Joe capable of making something this complex by hand? I think not. I consider myself a pretty good modeler and I couldn't create this from scratch without going to extremes. What are the other options? Old school machining - It would be difficult but could be done. Is Joe a machinist? Does he have a lathe, mill and indexing head? If not what would it cost him to hire a machinist? CAD - Is Joe a CAD designer? Does he have the software and experience to create this part on computer? If not then how much would it cost him to hire a CAD designer? CNC - Assuming the CAD files are done, does Joe have a CNC machine? How much would it cost him to have a CNC part produced? SLA/Rapid Prototyping - Expensive! Can Joe afford this? Maybe Joe could hire Ra'anan to create a "template" for him. How much would Ra'anan charge for this service? What if Ra'anan, being a competing aftermarket company, refused the job not wanting to help a competitor? The aftermarket business is not a great way to make money. Every project is a gamble. Will I sell enough to pay for the materials? Will I sell enough to pay for all of my time creating the parts? Ra'anan made a business decision to invest his own money to pay for CAD design and an SLA pattern. Eric is taking a short cut and getting a "template" for free.

For me, I won't 'borrow' parts created by any aftermarket company. I consider this stealing from my competitor. I have no problem with modifying plastic kit parts. Aftermarket parts are made to enhance the plastic kit manufacturers products, not compete with them. I do prefer to scratchbuild my patterns as much as possible. As far as I know, aftermarket companies using their competitors parts is a rare occurrence. Rhino Modelworks was recently accused of piracy on ARC and I shared my opinions: http://s362974870.on...pic=239521&st=0 I'm not aware of any instances of reputable aftermarket companies using competitors parts. I have in the past contacted a few aftermarket companies to alert them that their parts were being used or outright pirated by other people. In this case I felt I needed to speak out because of the way Ra'anan was being piled on. Frankly, I'm surprised and disappointed by the responses here. Had it been an LSP regular, such as Jerry Rutman claiming that his parts were being stolen, I'm sure the crowd's reaction would have been much, much different. It would be interesting to see the parts comparison. I don't think it's up to the audience to decide if they are modified enough to be acceptably different though. They are Ra'anan's parts and he has already expressed his opinion.

OK then... It's a question of morals as well as copyright infringement. Unfortunately the aftermarket business doesn't generate enough profit to afford lawyers, particularly when your dispute is with somebody overseas. What if Ra'anan plans to release the exhaust and wheel wells as separate products in the future? He would then have to compete against improved versions of his own products. What if Ra'anan does plan to release an Australian version in the future? Again, he'd be competing against his own parts. What if there is a model maker with a limited budget who has to decide which set to purchase. If he buys yours then Ra'anan not only lost a sale but unwillingly helped finance your profit. What if he simply doesn't want his hard work being sold by someone else? Why use the basic shell of Ra'anan's wheel wells rather than just make your own? They are pretty easy shapes to create. The basic shells would have only added a couple of extra hours. But then looking at your pictures it appears that there is still quite a bit of the original detail of Ra'anan's on the insides that would have taken many more hours to create. Why didn't you simply make your own exhaust? Because it's not that simple. It would be very difficult to scratch that part yourself. It could be done though. You could have modified the kit parts and spent countless hours doing the intricate details. You could have even done some artwork and paid to have photo-etch made to detail the kit part, but that would have been expensive. You could have paid a CAD designer to model it for you and then paid a rapid prototype firm to generate an SLA master pattern for you, as Ra'anan did, but that would be really expensive. It's much easier, cheaper and faster to use somebody else's work as your foundation, especially when much of the difficult work has already been done for you. It's also wrong... I'll ask these questions again: How would you feel if you created a product and somebody took it, modified it and sold it as their own? Would it be OK for me to buy an LSP Corsiar cowl, modify it and sell it as a Zactomodels product? Would it be OK for me to buy some AMS parts, modify them and sell them as Zactomodels parts? A few more questions: If you had spent hundreds of hours handmaking or paid big bucks for a CAD designer and prototype firm to create a master pattern for your business and a competitor asked you permission to use your part to master their own pattern, for free, how would you reply? How about asking Paul or Brian from Fisher Models what they think? Jerry Crandall? Radu Brinzan? John from AIMs? I can't imagine any aftermarket company that would approve of their parts being 'borrowed', modified and sold by another company without permission. What's the right thing to do at this point? I see three options: 1. Since you've already invested this much effort in the project, ask Ra'anan's permission to use his parts. He will either say "no", "yes" or "yes, for a price". 2. Start over and make your own parts. 3. Don't sell the parts.

I hate to get involved in this but what I see happening here is just wrong... Modifying a kit part and turning it into an aftermarket part is much different than modifying somebody else's aftermarket part and selling it as your own. If someone wants to buy these "Australian Mirage" aftermarket parts they still need to purchase the Revell kit to use them and Revell still makes a profit. Eric is selling parts that were created by Ra'anan and Ra'anan is getting nothing in return for his hard work. Simply removing a few details and replacing them with your own doesn't change the fact that Ra'anan made the original parts, shaped and sized them to fit and created all of the detail that wasn't removed. Put yourself in Ra'anans shoes. How would you feel if you created a product and somebody took it, modified it and sold it as their own? Would it be OK for me to buy an LSP Corsiar cowl, modify it and sell it as a Zactomodels product? Would it be OK for me to buy some AMS parts, modify them and sell them as Zactomodels parts? I don't think so...

http://www.photoka.info/english.htm No interior shots but you can never have too much reference material: http://svsm.org/gallery/mi24_family Cheers!

The missile pylons aren't the greatest www.Zactomodels.com

Looking forward to seeing the pics.Sorry you had problems fitting the intakes. It looks like you removed a little more material on the triangular platforms under the splitter plates than you should have. Ideally you should have left a wall thickness around the perimeter of the triangle and filed this down until the splitter plate fit properly. Between the platform and the fact that your fuselage was already glued together I can understand that it must have been difficult. I'm betting the end result looks great though. Cheers! Chris

It's my understanding that there would be no common parts between the YF-22 and F-22A. An accurate conversion would literally require replacing everything on the Testors kit. Some aftermarket and corrections for the YF-22 would be possible but I'm not sure they'd be very popular because the kit is such poor quality to start with. I'm sure some people would appreciate having aftermarket for it though. Lindberg was/is(?) going to do a 1/32 F-35.Trumpeter has a 1/32 F-22A listed as a future release but no release date. I think you'll find that it is in fact 1/48. I wouldn't order it without first calling Model Expo and confirming the scale.A search for '1/32 F-22 cockpit' revealed this: http://www.google.co...ved=0CFEQ8wIwBg If you click on either of the first 2 hobby shop links they list it as 1/48. If you click the 3rd site, Circle C, they list the same part # and 1/32 but provide no pics or details. I'm pretty certain that nobody ever did a 1/32 cockpit for it... Cheers!

It's Chris W.! (a.k.a. Zactoman) Chris Z sounds too much like Chrissie I just de-molded your intakes and they will ship tomorrow. My only concern is that you have already glued the fuselage halves together. I would have recommended fitting and gluing the intakes before doing this for a couple of reasons. First, it is necessary to cut away some material for my intakes to fit properly. My concern would be debris floating around the inside of the fuselage that might end up finding its way into the cockpit. This isn't that big a deal unless you glue the canopy closed. Also note that some additional material needs to be removed since Trump 're-tooled' the intakes and fuselage: http://i79.photobuck...platformfix.jpg Second, whether you are using my intakes or the kit ones, I find it helpful to apply some pressure from the inside of the fuselage while attaching them to help insure a tight fit. I'm sure you'll overcome these obstacles... Looking forward to more progress! It's looking great so far! Cheers, Chris

I saw one tonight, taped together and I agree completely.It's Really Sweet!!! I want one!

Sorry it was too late to help you. Hopefully it might save others a head-ache. No progress on the two-seat canopies yet. I'm close to wrapping up the dual Aphid launch rails. The canopies will be next on the bench.

I glued my wings to the lower fuselage and realized after the fact that this may have been a mistake, but after studying the situation more carefully, it's an easy fix. Simply removing a little material in the area shown allows the wing to fit properly, eliminating the mismatch. I still have a gap to deal with, mostly on the left side, but it's not all that bad. Glueing the wings to the lower half does make it easier to line up the wing joint with the raised pad next to the gear wells. HTH Chris

MiG-29 walkarounds added. Cheers!