Academy 1/48 F-22

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
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I have been working my way through this kit over the last couple weeks… All I can say is WOW.

this kit is EASILY the best fitting, best designed kit I have ever encountered. The parts fit incredibly well, the gaps are minimal. What appeared to be a very complex kit is turning out to be a complete cake walk for me.

Everything that is wrong with the final product of this build rests squarely with me and my lack of skills… No blaming the kit.

Taken just a few minutes ago:

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Academy F-22 and Academy F-15E next to each other at about the same stage of build. The F-22 has just a few seams that were caused by minor mistakes on my part. The F-15E kit is pretty much turning out to be a turd… Sorry Revell for doubting your kit.

I may have both of these primed by mid week if everything keeps going the way it has been.

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looking good there paintsniffer and yeah revell’s f-15 is way better than the academy next time get a revell f-15 [;)]

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Glad to hear that it goes together well. I’m going to keep an eye on your build as I’ve been hurting for one of those kits since I first saw it.

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Looking good paintsniffer. I have that Academy F-22, and in fact just oogled it in my stash, checking to see if the box had similar verbiage as the Tamiya F-16 that I just got, that claims the kit is produced under license and the design belongs to the airframe manufacturer. No such wording on the Academy kit.

I have never built the Academy F-15E but did recently build the Revell offering and was much impressed with that one.

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Looking good so far. Keep us posted.

Regards, Rick

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It’s not a cheap kit… But it is worth every penny.

When you first open the box it will make your heart skip a beat. There are a LOT of parts. However, it has two sets of just about everything.There are provisions for making almost every door open or closed on this thing, and they don’t just give you one set of doors… You get an open set, and a closed set.

The cockpit is decent. No complaints. The seat is nice and reasonably well detailed. The pilot figure is nicely molded if you are into such things. I think installing the gear for the open canopy will cause a lot of swearing (its complicated) but we will see.

There are two sets of exhaust nozzels… open and closed. That had me nervous as hell thinking they were complicated- they aren’t

There are two sets of weapons trapeezes… extended and retracted… I thought it would be a complicated arrangement… It isn’t

The internal bays are easy enough to assemble… Everything fits beautifully. I am kicking myself because i didn’t spray the top part of the main weapons bay white… As that makes up the bottom of the intakes… Live and learn.

I also created a problem for myself when i sprayed the inside of the intakes white without masking the end of the inside part. I had no idea it was going to stick outside the airplane. Oh well… I will probably just mask around the inside at some point and respray the intake openings… Won’t be perfect, but I think I can live with it.

I caused myself some more difficulty with the intakes. I attached the nose section to the intakes. I should have just let the nose portion of the lower fuselage half flop around until I mounted the top of the fuselage. Even with my minor flub the gap only required a little thick CA and some sanding.

The directions say to attach the main gear before assembling the fuselage. I studied this problem extensively and I think they can be attached later… Much later. The mains are VERY flimsey and I would be worried about them if I left them on through painting and final assembly

Weapons… It comes with 2x AIM-9M 2x AIM-9X 2x JDAM 6xAMRAAM

The JDAMS are the weak part of the kit. I think these are the only parts I thought fit badly.

The kit also includes 2 external tanks. Part of me wants to mount them… But I have never seen a picture of an F-22 with wing tanks mounted.

Decals… the sheet is almost the size of the box. I think there are markings for every F-22 presently in the inventory… I have a feeling this will be the first thing to get trimmed down as the kit spends a longer time on the market.

Just pay attention to the instructions, proceed carefully and it will surprise you how easily the thing goes together… Everything fits. Academy did the work and got this one right.

I have an Italeri 1/48 F-22 in the stash… It is NO comparison to this kit.

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Matt- Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts on this kit. I have one that I won in a raffle this year, and have been itching to build ever since.

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I have a Revell of Germany kit in 1/72 scale that I haven’t started yet. A review I read at the time said it was “The” kit to have of any of the 1/72 scale available at the time. It strikes me that some of the descriptions you have here sound a bit like this kit. I even read somewhere about a poor fit of some of the weapons but don’t recall if it was the JDAMs or not. It also has lots of decals with it for either 4 or 5 different aircraft. Makes one wonder…

I also have an Italeri F-22 kit in 1/72 scale that I was not pleased with-it has this weird configuration where the front and rear of the upper fuselage joins together just in front of the wingroot. I just could never get a ripple to go away where I filled and filed the seam. Not to mention the need to rescribe all those panel lines. I’m not great at doing those except on a small scale.

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I also have looked many times at the Italeri 1/48 F-22… the decal sheet was unimpressive, and caused me to put off the build a long time… Because I wanted to build one from the 1st TFW…

I have also seen a lot of people say the Italeri kit squats too low in front… The only F-22s I have seen in person had the engines out, so I don’t want to trust my own judgement on that.

Then the Academy kit came out and my wishes came true.

I am debating the paint right now… I am a rattle can kind of guy so after I prime it sometime this week I will probably be sitting around pondering the 3 colors for a while.

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It looks to be coming out very good,funny I was reading a blog on another site,and he had some fit problems,but thanks for your many hints and tips.

I will however wait for the coming Hasegawa offering,and then make my decision.

Looking foward to seeing your paint-job.

11

Paintsniffer,

Looks great so far. I will be following your progress with interest. When I read the review in FSM it really perked my interest in doing something w/o props! Some day!

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Do you know if Hasagawa has plans for 1/72 scale in the F-22?

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Very nice review and appreciate your honest thoughts on the model. I would love to tackle this kit someday. Being new to airplane models I’m still on a learning curve with them. I did do Trumpeter’s 1/144 F-22 and it is a jewel. I’ll be watching your build closely.

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As of yet I haven’t had any real fit problems to speak of… There is a little gap on the underside where the outside portion of the intake ducts meet the fuselage. There is a miniscule gap where the intakes and top fuselage half come together… And because of my flub with the nose I had a slight gap around the seam under the cockpit…

There are the usual tiny seams where the tail section halves come together. I really can’t get over how tight everything fits… and not so tight it doesnt fit… I mean the tolerances are PERFECT. Makes me have doubts about if the molds will age gracefully. Mine is probably an early pop because I had it pre-ordered.

Everything I have run into I have fixed with CA… And might hit with some Mr. Surfacer. I will probably prime it when I wake up this afternoon (I work nights). I will toss some more pictures up tonight provided work isn’t crazy.

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An Update:

I have been working dilligently on the AMRAAMS… I have those painted, I have the wheels mostly painted and assembled, though not attached.

I sprayed the light ghost gray for the leading edge areas… I neglected to take a picture… Anyway, I then shot a medium gray main coat… I am debating what color the camoflage will be.

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Here is a shot of the very complete Decal sheet. This thing is huge… It isn’t as daunting as it appears though… 95% of the sheet is squadron markings.

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Anyway, here is a scrap piece I painted to evaluate paint colors for the camoflage bits.

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the middle is the medium gray… The left is Gunship Gray, the right is neutral gray.

This is the reference photo I am working off of for colors…

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WOW, That is some great work you’re doing Paintsniffer. I also like your commentary on the kit itself. I can see it helping out a lot of people in the future. I look forward to seeing how it all turns out and how you paint all the different colors. I haven’t done any modern aircraft yet but find myself being intimidated by the paint schemes. Go figure because I’m dying to do an F-15 or F-18 in the pixel camo.

I hope to eventually do this and other current aircraft but in 1/72. If anyone can help a guy out with the best kits in this scale it would be greatly appreciated.

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I am no contest winner… But modern paint schemes are pretty simple… Shades of gray. Just get comfortable with masking tape.

I think I am the first person on the board to venture into the F-22 kit so as a pioneer it was time to go public with my average skills and share what I learn with the rest of the world.

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Very nice…I’ll be following this build as I have started the Cockpit on the same kit while I am working on my P-47 in another thread. Happy building.

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I really wanted my Revell 1/72nd scale F-22 to be my next build but unfortunatly, a discussion in another thread caused my Italeri A-6 intruder to jump onto my workbench. My little Trumpeter 1/44th scale F-22 had a paint mishap that forced a complete strip of it’s original paint job…will I ever see one of these grace my “finished” list?