Clunkmeister

Well Mike, I just had a quick look as I’m on the road right now, but the flaps always open underneath the wing, with the exception being on a dive bomber where they open both ways to function as dive brakes. I’ll study the rest of your questions when I can look closely.

That color nails that Sukhoi grey quite well. Nice work so far and this should be one neat looking machine when finished.

Welcome to the forums, Sir! Glad to have onboard. I’m looking forward to seeing your creation. I sure wish I could build armor, but I always seem to lose my mojo with it. 😰 However, seeing finished masterpieces from others just blows my mind. Nothing tells a story like a well dome armor build!

Spread the word, folks. I know there are some out there on other forums who have expressed interest in this type of GB, and they’re welcome to participate here.

I know it’s odd to hear this from me, but I actually did a bit of my own research, and found that this is the color most recommended for the Fulcrum’s cockpit. A quick spray followed by comparison to the panel pics you sent shows me it is, in fact, dead on almost perfect.

Thanks for pointing that out. Hahaha. At least it’s not pornographic.

If anyone was ever curious, here’s the size difference between a Mug-29 and a Su-27. The Flanker in 1/48 is bigger than all 1/32 single engine fighters. It’s insane, actually

NICE! Beautiful work,

No Trumpeter goofiness here. And it’s amazing how small the Fulcrum actually is. Not much bigger than an F-16. Just two HUGE engines on a tiny airplane.

Welcome aboard, Dirk! This will be a beautiful build, no doubt. I LOVE the 29, it’s one of the most aesthetically pleasing aircraft of all time. Just all swoops and curves. I commend you for taking on the Trumpeter kit, I took the easy way out and chose 1/48 for my 29 9-13. And once again, Welcome Aboard!

The line IS very thin and if necessary, things can change, but with the group here, I’m hopeful. It was asked for by several folks as a show of support, and in the end, at Fran’s suggestion, it became more a showcase for Ukrainian kitmakers. I literally gnashed my teeth over this for days, then bounced it off the others for opinions. Politics must and WILL stay out of this. There is NO wiggle room there whatsoever.

Rob, one thing I made clear on this from the beginning is that this build will have a definite start and finish date. The finish date is set at 120 days from the start, with, given enough interest, a possible extension for 60 more days, which will give people a full 6 months. I wanted a firm End Date to give some sense of Regimental order to the entire thing. That is absolutely needed when operating one of these. A full six months, if warranted, should give people plenty of time to make some sort of valiant effort to finish. Now that I know how, I’m going to set up a showcase RFI for this build At the conclusion of this, a random name will be drawn from all those who have completed builds. The only exception will be me. As with the other stuff, I won’t make myself eligible to avoid feelings of impropriety. However, other than helping me moderate, all other Staff Members will be eligible simply because they’re not doing the draw, my wife is. 😁 Good luck to all, let’s see some cool completed models, and I’m cutting plastic today. Fun.

Good to know. This is supposedly the best Fulcrum out there in any scale.

This looks like fun

So why in tarnation can’t we get this kind of detail on 1/32 Mug-29s? This is flippin’ gorgeous!

This kit has some odd comments online. For some people, it falls together. For others, they fight it the whole way. So let’s just look…. This looks good to me so far. I have a feeling the engines are what screw with things, so, we check as we go.

But wait, there’s more.. Vert de Ferk are these? Hmmmmm. They look a little out of scale

Well I cracked this baby open and so far I like what I see. Jets are waaaaaaay out of my comfort zone, plus this is in the newly legal 1/48 scale, so we’ll see what we can make of it. I was able to find some AKAN Ukrainian paint colors and some interesting decals on the way, so it might even sorta look like a Ukrainian Mug-29 when complete.

Hubert, I’m working on it. Trying to figure out how to do it. 🤣

I like and and appreciate your social conscience, however like Hubert says, the two are not socially incompatible. Truth be known, I struggled with the idea of this GB for a bit, before I ran it by the other fellow staff members. I thought that the idea might be seen as a bit rash, etc, but surprisingly, the others were all for it. Also a couple Members had previously approached me about this, which is what got the juices flowing. Personally, I think the idea of showcasing Ukrainian stuff is worthwhile. Whether they be Ukrainian produced kits (it’s amazing how many manufacturers we take for granted ARE Ukrainian), or showing Ukrainian colors on other available kits. This isn’t a political statement insomuch as it’s a personal statement of outrage. We build. We’re good at it. We have a stash, so use it. If we feel so strongly that our resources could do greater good supporting the Ukrainian war effort, possibly selling our stashes and our luxuries to raise money for donation would be a better idea? Heck, liquidating Hubert’s stash alone would probably finance a complete MiG-29.

Funny with this kit. For some folks it literally falls together. For others, they try to out think themselves and end up creating a fit nightmare. The one recurring theme is that the engines can be cut back to the locators to save weight and ease potential misalignments. Mount the fans on the rear of the intake trunks. Pics to follow shortly. Intake trunks are two pieces and have a seam and ejector pin marks. Ejector pin marks inside air brakes, too. No big deal there, I close mine. Trunks are easily cleaned and smoothed.

So we start this. More pictures to follow, but I received this in the mail today, and had previously ordered some AKAN paint and decals from Linden Hill. I’m going to look into some masks to do a “Ghost of Kyiv” fanciful emblem. There’s plenty of examples on the Internet, but we’ll sort through a few. As is said, he is everywhere, and he is nowhere.. The pilot is the famous Ukrainian ace Каворкник, a true hero of the Republic!

What's amazing is how people suddenly look and realize actually how much of what we buy and take for granted are actually Ukrainian kits. Not Russian, but Ukrainian. Eastern Europe has been coming along huge in kit development and marketing, easily exceeding China in the level of quality they produce.

I actually enjoy these models, Rob. I just hit a setback with mine when I screwed up my second planking and had to redo it. It happened in the area most visible: below the main wales but above the copper bottom sheeting, so I at least want that area to be as flawless as I can make it. Basically I just got in a hurry. The other area I was VERY careful on is the sternpost. I found out it's very important to thin the first planking as needed otherwise the rudder will be too thin.

Just remember folks, a lot of our favorite manufacturers are Ukrainian Companies. Depending on how long the war criminals keep this up, we may lose a lot or even all of our friends who own and operate the great Companies. MiniArt, Modelsvit, Amodel, ICM, Proper Plane, Roden, the list goes on….