Taking the rhino by the horns...

Daniel
Since the mig is done but the dio stuff seems to take forever to arrive I am now moving on to something that will probably keep me busy for a while...

Big thanks to mr Petiers over at largescaleplanes who built a fantastic super hornet out of this mess and also did a fantastic documentation:
forum.largescaleplan..ith-lessons-learned/

Will keep close to his advice and hopefully come out victorious 🙂

Daniel
cheers roland!

My suspicion: "We need a large super hornet that is cheaper than the trumpeter one" was the only thought that was really persistent throughout this endeavour. Probably also written on a golden wall plaquette in the design bureau 😄
But its still some weird kind of fun to work through it once you have accepted that it sucks and also have the tricky parts pointed out by someone before you start

Stefan Schacht
nice start, count me in.

Juskifo
I always admire when I see a difficult assembly that requires a lot of work: putty, engraving, scratch ...
was the ECS late pipes in the kit or is it from the aftermarket?

Daniel
Welcome Stefan and Juskifo and thanks!

The kit comes with both ECS exhaust versions and lets you choose. Thats good. Bad: In 1:32 scale I would have expected some real pipes with a hole at the end...but I had to carefully drill them out myself.

Sarunas D
This will be a good reference when building this beast of a kit

Daniel
thanks mates and welcome sarunas!

I can really recommend the link from my 1st comment if you plan to tackle this mother. Helped me a lot and is much more step-by-step than my posts here.

some work finished on the canopy, really happy with the result! (now careful not to damage it...)

Juskifo
the anti-reflective glass roof adds a touch of realism;
followed by mirrors at 32 which are perhaps easier to mount than at 48 Thanks for work idea

Jorge Ferreira
I`m so glad I didn`t buy this kit. Thank you Daniel. I hope God gives you all you need to finish the model.

Daniel
Primer down, the hard part is finished. The fins took a LOT of super glue, putty and sanding at their roots, they seem to be designed for a completely different model...

@juskifo: thanks mate, everything is easier at 1:32;) But mirrors in 1:48 are not that uncommon. My tip if you cut mirror foil: try to do several strands with a bent nail-scissor choose the one thats most parallell and cut it into smaller pieces. easy. 🙂

@jorge: Thanks !May God help me 😄 Its not that bad, as you see I got it going together 🙂 I wouldnt recommend that kit to anyone of course, but its far from unbuildable, most italeri-kits I've build so far gave me more trouble... I just feel the need to correct some issues with the shape, thats the main prob

Jorge Ferreira
For me the major problem is time spend. Unfortunately I`m not getting younger but the stash keep on growing. So when I know about kit`s like this I have to get away. I`ve done a few like this or even worse so I know what it is like. Of course we always have the feeling of the challenge , the acomplishment of a hard work etc etc........don`t care with that anymore...????

Juskifo
?Thank you very much for these very precious information for my model assembly

Daniel
shading applied to create some depth later on, generally this will be a rather clean specimen.

@jorge: pragmatic approach, I see the reasoning: To many good kits out there to waste time on bad kits... If there was a Tamiya 1:32 version of this bird I wouldnt be doing this as well. Well maybe yes, as I am sold on this livery 😉
(ah yes, theres the trumpeter, but is not a joy to build as well, though not this bad...but here the surface detail is much better)

Sarunas D
Seems like you're progressing at a good pace, considering a complicated kit.

Juskifo
I imagine that one will be represented in flight !?

Daniel
Jep, after all the tedious sanding I am now in the lane and making good progress, no landing gear is also a huge time saver.
Gonna stick this on a pole in a steep climb, this looks cool + saves the most horizontal space. Still plenty of vertical space left in my little room here...

Daniel
Thanks Roland!

Some updates on painting

Alexander
Definitely some very nice porgress you made with tackling this controversial kit. 👍 Joining the seats and stay for the rest of the ride.

Daniel
Welcome Alexander and thanks!

Wayne Digby
Awesome work

Daniel
thanks wayne! 🙂

Daniel
some outdoor decaling done on the balcony. Did I already say that I am sold on that livery? 🙂

Daniel
you could, as an alternative, rename yourself to roland vampire for some months 😄
I was also really tempted by it as I prefer actual fleet squadrons - but the vx-9 looked just too cool 🙂 thanks!

Daniel
spent some time on the pipes, sadly this is not that much visible in there later...its not a mig 25 🙂

Konrad -
Awesome progress on this super bug?! Looking forward to the final rollout 👍!!

Alexander
It looks very realistic though, so nice work!

Juskifo
?Nice stencil: "No step" home-made I imagine ?
this marking is all in color, it changes after the "low visibility" version

Daniel
Many thanks Konrad Alexander and Juskifo!
Roll-out or fly-out in this case is just a matter of days 🙂
The metal stencils are from an eduard set, I dont regret that purchase, especially as I got more 1/32 Hornets waiting in line

Daniel
the bug is operational!

VX-9 Vampires Triple Sticks | Album by halohead (1:32)

Daniel
thanks everyone for stopping by 🙂

Juskifo
nice reference pic 49