I had been wanting to finish this idea out since I found that the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron was trading in its F-16s for UAV Predators. It took a long time before I found Unicraft’s 1/72 offering. I had never done a full resin kit, so it took a while before I decided on taking on the challenge. Upon receiving the tiny box I thought that I should of hunted harder for something in 1/48.
As far as parts it is OOB. The finish is completely spurious, all decals are thanks to Photoshop and my printer, except for the unit emblem forward of the wing and the blue stripes on the tails. This is the finish I would like to see. The serial number is from the unit’s previous designation as the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group.
This is merely a “return to roots” for the unit, as it was initially established as the 111th Observation Squadron flying Jenny biplanes.
Chopperfan, I think that would be a good looking project, especially if done up in California Fire Dept scheme or any of the other flashy finishes. Unicraft produces this kit, and looks just enough larger than the MQ-1 to be a tad less intimidating.
Really nice work, especially for your first resin. I personally have built awesome injection kits, bad injection kits, good vacuforms, bad vacuforms, and have even tried my hand at a scratchbuild or two. But a resin kit? Not yet. I just have never been motivated enough to plop down the $$$ for one.
But one day I MAY have to splurge on that Anigrand XF-11…
But I digress. It looks nice and clean, and everything appears (to me, anyway) to be in scale. Nice job.
I’ve looked through some of Unicraft’s stuff, before. How did the kit go together? Sprue shots look a bit rough, but only becasue of all the flash. I heard that, once cleaned up, they are some nice kits. Any thoughts?
Lucien, from my humble opinion I think Unicraft’s line of UAV’s is probably the perfect resin kit to start with (purely a lucky coincidence on my part). Theres not much to worry about as far as details go, plus no worries about an interior or vac-form canopies and it was only 20 or 25 dollars. Plus the parts aren’t so heavy you have to worry about having to drill and mount brass rods to hold parts like wings where they’re supposed to stay. The only parts that troubled me were the landing gear, it felt like they were on the verge of breaking the whole time I was sanding off the flash and seam lines. Of course there were a lot of air bubbles, but I guess thats a standard resin trait. There was lots of flash but it cleaned up easily.
I’m no expert as this was my first attempt at resin, but thats my take on it. I’ve been eyeing Anigrand’s A2D Skyshark, but maybe a couple more UAV’s first.
I’ve seen your work (all excellent) in previous posts and I doubt one of these resin kits would even be a real challenge for you.
Niether am I, but it seems to me that Anigrand is one of the better resin companies, along with Planet. At the very least the parts seem a bit cleaner than Unicraft parts, and decently detailed cockpits are (usually) provided.
Good work. I too have been hesitant to take on an all-resin kit.
I also have a concern that the landing gear on the resin kit simply won’t support that mass of resin above it. Have you had any problems in that area? If so, would brass stock bent to shape solve the problem?
The landing gear was definately a fiddly little piece of resin. The forward gear was just fine without reinforcement, but the rear gear was another story. It sagged/spread under the weight of the body and wings, to the point that the tail was barely off the ground. To remedy that I drilled holes into the wheels and inserted stiff wires into the bottom. I then drilled two aligning holes into a wood base and slid the wire into those holes. That was the only reason I even placed this little model on a base.
The wingspan measures out to a whopping eight inches.
