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Kitty Hawk 1/32 Mirage 2000B/C/D & N


Stokey Pete

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What if it wasn’t an issue of quality control, but a conspiracy amongst some manufacturers to deliberately send kits out with issues so that modellers had to fix things themselves, thereby raising the overall skill level of the modelling community?

 

 

Edited by ericg
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  • 2 weeks later...

A question and then a couple photos. My question is how much weight do I need to put in the nose for this confirmed tail-sitter? I haven’t installed the main gear legs yet so that I can paint. Someone on FB claimed 45g, and that’s a lot of weight for the rather fragile nose gear leg. Anyone have an idea? And for photos - I’ve installed the instrument panel coaming and the pilot is also seated after being painted.


mrLBD2S.jpg?2

 

MiTRsFZ.jpg?1

 

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Unless the 45g is way overkill, the weight will not sit on the nose gear, but on the main gear as it is supposed to offset the weight in the rear of the aircraft. So if 45g is needed to just slightly make it a nose sitter, you can estimate around 85g - 90g on the main gear and around 5g on the nose gear.

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A couple of observations as I move along with this kit:

-so many parts for variants but no instructions on when to use them

-decals are great for any of the French jets, but I’m guessing the Greeks, Brazilians and Taiwanese don’t use French stencils after they get the planes...

-the gear legs are as spindly as they can be! I’m definitely going to be epoxying the main gear legs in as the locating tabs do not help to steady or even place them properly.

-nose weight is definitely going to be an issue which I’ve asked about here, but there’s no way the nose gear in the kit is supporting that much additional weight.

In any event, lots of lessons learned here. I’m bound to do a -D when they are available, but I’ll wait for sturdier gear legs and more marking choices. Here’s a couple of photos of my progress:

Overall jet before primer:

DVWY0X4.jpg?1
 

Closeup of the IFR probe. I drilled a hole and inserted some plastic rod to reinforce the crappy butt joint that KH designers opted for. I’m convinced the designers have never built a model of anything:

BYby8Zt.jpg?1
 

And finally after a coat of Stynlrez primer:

s3T91qx.jpg?1
 

Looking forward to paint at this point.

 

John

 

 

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5 hours ago, Out2gtcha said:

Regardless of any issues you've had John it looks terrific! Looks like the kit could benefit from the G-Factor treatment.

Or put it on a stick and build it in flight:)  With the separate control surfaces and slats, it could provide quite a dynamic display.  That's what I'm planning to do...

 

 

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5 minutes ago, jenshb said:

Or put it on a stick and build it in flight:)  With the separate control surfaces and slats, it could provide quite a dynamic display.  That's what I'm planning to do...

 

 

+1

I think mine will be on a stick too. The lines of the jet are just too pretty to ruin with ugly undercarriage.

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2 hours ago, jenshb said:

Or put it on a stick and build it in flight:)  With the separate control surfaces and slats, it could provide quite a dynamic display.  That's what I'm planning to do...

 

 

If you're doing this plane gear up then be prepared to do a bit of work to close those gear doors up. The nose gear door needed shimming and putty, and the two main gear doors I closed up needed a bead of putty and some attention to level out.

8 hours ago, Out2gtcha said:

Regardless of any issues you've had John it looks terrific! Looks like the kit could benefit from the G-Factor treatment.

Thanks very much Brian! I feel like any KH kit takes two kits to build - one to learn all the issues and one to build correctly.

 

John

Edited by jgrease
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