|
Meteor Productions 1/32 F-105D Fin and Rudder kit number CeC32150 |
|
Reviewed By Frank Kranick |
|
|
|
MSRP: (from the Meteor website) “CEC32150 F-105D Corrected Fin & Rudder for Trumpeter. The fin and rudder on the Trumpeter kit are quite incorrect. First, the kit rudder is far too narrow in chord, and its shape is totally wrong, being a parallelogram in real life. The mass balance at the top was corrected and lengthened to the correct shape. The fin itself has some shape problems as well, including the taillight and APR-36 fairings….” Meteor Productions might want to cut back on their rhetoric just a little bit. By most accounts, the 1/32nd scale Trumpeter F-105D kit is a winner. Many critiques have been written both online and in print, singing its praises and woes; a gleeful generation waiting for a kit of the 105 in this scale finally is rewarded; insufficient detail in the cockpit; landing gear far too weak to support the kit’s bulk, etc. Black Box, Cutting Edge and others have started to market correction/enhancement sets for this kit and the Wild Weasel two-seat version. While I have no beef with cottage- or garage-industry outfits offering resin or photoetched sets for a given kit, most simply offer what they produce as a part number or catalog listing. Cutting Edge’s offerings are listed differently, in that subjective descriptions are added to assist in selling the product. Who would want to make a model with a “hugely wrong” or “quite incorrect” area that can benefit from one of CE’s sets? Enter the CE resin correction for the rudder/vertical stabilizer for the aforementioned Trumpeter F-105D. What you get are three pieces made of a wonderful grey resin that sands and shapes beautifully when the parts are removed from the pour blocks. Rivets and panels lines are finely rendered. I found one pinhole on the leading edge of the fin, nothing a tiny drop of CA couldn’t fix. These parts replace Trumpeter’s fin and rudder and do away with the hinges that seem to be a hallmark of large-scale Trumpeter aircraft kits. CE doesn’t provide instructions and none are really needed though you’ll have to remove the locating tabs found on the rear fuselage prior to fitting the resin fin. The rudder fits the fin like a glove and the prominent intake at the base of the fin is cast separately. Now, onto the reasons to use this set… CE would have you believe the kit’s rudder is “far too narrow in chord” and hence, erroneous. Perhaps, but after comparing both the CE rudder and the respective assembled Trumpeter parts, I found them to be pretty close to each other .The kit rudder is indeed different in shape than the CE replacement – it tapers from the bottom to top while the CE rudder’s leading and trailing edges are parallel. I don’t have access to Republic Aviation’s design plans but my references show CE’s rudder to better resemble the prototype rudder. And, if Trumpeter’s rudder were shaped like CE’s, the chord difference claim would be moot. When you look at both, side-by-side, the rudder differences are noticeable but as a whole, both fin assemblies are largely similar. The picture shows the kit fuselage, kit fin and rudder (left) and the CE set (right). Now, is this set worth it? For some, it’ll be a ‘must have’ but be careful - it’s heavier than the kit’s styrene forebear and for a large tailsitter of a kit, any more weight amounts to pulling a tiger by the tail, especially with such wobbly landing gear. At $23.99, it’s a bit steep for what you get – I don’t think the average modeler would care to make a pricey model even more expensive by another one-fourth; a quick search finds the going price of the Trumpeter kit at $99.95. To CE’s credit, the parts are very nicely rendered and the resin is great to work with. I also see Black Box has come out with a cockpit set, Aeroclub, CE and others offer replacement landing gear and CE has announced other detail/correction sets for the kit. All told, you can easily turn an expensive kit into a huge cost center if you’re not careful. As for my previous comment on the rhetoric… …you’d better watch what you wish for. For a relative upstart company like Trumpeter, this Thud is ambitious and quite nice. Their next kits may be better still. If so, resin and PE kits might not be needed – then what will the cottage industry folks do? Thanks very much to the folks at Meteor Productions for the review sample. |
|
Information, images, and all
other items placed electronically on this site |
)