Last time, I was talking about experience required when building short-run kits. Today I’ve decided to show you the hurdles that await me with this kit.
The join between fuselage and vertical stabilizer is rather poor – unfortunately this photo doesn’t show it at its worst, but there’s a gaping hole there at the back of the join. Careful puttying and sanding is needed there to blend the spine extension into the stabilizer.
Dry fitting is of the utmost importance with these kits. As you can see, wing insert is way too thick to fit nicely into the main wing, while there are large gaps of varying width present all over the join line. Major sanding will be required followed by puttying and sanding.
Dry fitting wing to the fuselage also showed gaps all along the seam line. Another area that will have to be taken care of.
Luckily, the fuselage halves went together rather nicely, but I guess this is where it stops. Dryfit of the clear parts showed that the canopy doesn’t fit at all and will have to be posed open. In the meantime, Flanker is progressing nicely so there might be slight delay with the Analog build.
VVS modelling 
Most of rare subjects are like that 😦
I wanted this kit too but i hesitated for the value – quality balance…
I also have build a lot of crap kits in 2014.
You could combine other kit parts. Zvezda or RV aircraft for this 😉
Fuselage is based on bis?
Yeah I know, but I have learned to live with this and there really aren’t much options – if you want it, you’ll have to do some serious modelling. I could combine but to be honest I don’t like RV kits while buying Zvezda just for this reason, it would make the kit even more expencive. Fuselage is based on the bis (should be S) but I noticed it too late. Luckily the spine doesn’t seem to be too bulged and the main visual difference is the length of spine extension into the fin. Fuselage is now finished and I am dealing with the wings this week. While these two main components are done, I expect the build to pick up the pace.