I have built a fair amount of 1/48 Academy fighters and all of them need a good amount of modelling skill to make them look good. My most recent Academy builds were the F-15I and the F-22. For the price I paid for those kits the quality should have been better. Their panel lines vary from cavernous to super shallow. I really believe there are problems with most of their 1/48 modern fighters.
Dean
The only Academy kit I have recent experience with is their 1/48 P-38F. In my opinion, yeah it has recessed panel lines, the upkicks in the underside wingtips, and makes a very lazy attempt at providing gear bays, but other than that, it offers absolutely no improvement on the Monogram P-48, goes together worse, and introduces alignment issues not present on that venerable older mold. Major part fit was decent (well, except for the booms to wings…ugh), but flash was copious and there are zero provisions made for locating tiny parts such as counterweights, pitot tubes, etc. Eduard does the same thing, which to me just seems needlessly frustrating. Is it impossible to provide a hole-and-pin connection so the part can actually be attached with something approaching a solid join? The cockpit was another hot mess, five pieces, poor frame molding, especially on the side windows, zero provisions made for positioning the canopy lid in the open position (just two pieces of clear plastic, no hinge, no support point, nothing). When your clear parts are embarrassed by clear parts from a kit 20 years older, there’s something wrong.
I seem to have relatively positive memories of some of their older kits (Spitfire XIV, and I believe I build the P-47N once upon a time), but after my experience with the P-38 - which if my dog hadn’t destroyed, I might have! - I view Academy kits as kits of last resort. When I get around to rounding out my Jugs with a P-47N, I’ll probably look into the old ProModeler kit first.
These threads seem to always split into two camps. One is the “OMG I had to putty and sand a little” camp, the other is the “It wasn’t perfect, but I’ve built worse.”
In a nutshell, you hit the nail on the head Paintsniffer. Some folks drive on without a complaint and others have to let the world know. [whstl]
I built lots of academy kits in 1/72, out of oldest kits never find great fittings problems, in 48 scales only built an f-14 and an f-111 and as i remember the fitting was really good [:O]
The sure disgrace from academy i know is about decals. Probably the eagle are an exception on fittings
Edit
Keep in mind that my first thinking when i buy a kit is the ratio between price/quality and academy oftem meet for me this require
Same here, I have build their Me-163 kit and it was a joy to build. Very good fit and good acuracy!
True some times, but some of us also prefer a kit adhere to a minumum tolerance level of aggro from lousy excuse quality.
My example was a kit that should never have been marketed. ANYONE could have seen the mold was long since dead, the level of flash on it was epic, the part fit was almost gone out the window. I suspected it was a first era Tamiya kit that had been done to death and then sold to a company that wanted to enter the market cheap.
Which is why I figure Academy spells cheap. MAYBE, just maybe they have finally gotten around to making their own models. But I am not so willing to bank on it.
I think models should come with disclaimers saying when they were first made and not just the current owners copyright date.
I haven’t been too happy with Academy kits. I’ve built their P-40 which wasn’t too bad, but the detail in the cockpit was virtually nonexistent.
I’m building their F-16A/C kit now and I’m not very happy with it. The parts don’t fit together well, and the cockpit detail is laughable.
I don’t have a problem using putty and sanding (I really enjoy building older Revell/Monogram kits, but at least then I know what I’m getting into before I start), but I really don’t care for Academy.
I think from now on I’ll stick to Tamiya and Hasegawa, and when I’m in the mood for a challenge or want to built a classic kit (think 1/48th WWII bombers), I’ll go with Monogram.
I’ve a bunch of Academy kits in my stash but can’t say I’ve built many of them yet.
I recently did build their 1/72nd B-24J which went together without any major problems. It wasn’t Tamigawa quality but it wasn’t far off. I’d build another for sure.
And a little off subject but their K1A1 South Korean modern tank was one of the best fitting models I’ve ever built. Solid detail and the thing falls together. Built one of their Shermans a few years ago, I’ve heard it’s not nearly as accurate as the Dragon and Tasca kits but it looks like a Sherman to me. Kit came with loads of options and no fit problems at all.
Frankly, I’ve heard Academy is pretty hit or miss - turning out one excellent model followed by an awful one. I guess I’ve been lucky so far in picking up their good kits.
Actually, Academy began life basically copying other companies’ moulds, but making some slight alterations here and there so they weren’t exact copies.
Their Pz.IV based kits (PzKpfW IV.H, Stug IV, Wirbelwind), M2 Bradley, for example, were copied from Tamiya mouldings, as were the 1/350 scale ship line. They didn’t actually use Tamiya’s moulds. Some of their 1/72 scale aircraft kits were copied from Hasegawa originals too.
Their later original tooled kits are generally better quality than those old kits.
[dto:]
Yup… The M10 you built H&HT was probably the clone off the old early 70s vintage Tamiya M10 GMC. The box cover photo art made that obvious enough. I have built two, decades ago, and was content with them. That kit was all that was available for a 1/35 M10 at that time. The only game in town. Their own non cloned new tooled M10s are top of the line kits of their own design and molding. PMMS ( a thoroughly meticulous site in their reviews) rates them well.
I also built their cloned M2 Bradley and was very happy with how that turned out. It looked just as good finished with its’ stablemate Tamiya M3 Bradley next to it on my display shelf. I actually have built more Academy armor kits than aircraft and have been very pleased with the builds, as have other modelers at the local IPMS and AMPS chapters who have spoken with me about them. I have never heard one of them snub a kit merely because it is Academy, and there are some world class modelers there.
I think knowing your subject kit ahead of time in Academy’s case whether it was one of their start up clones or new curent technology kit is a big factor in deciding to lambast a kit or not. Many of Academy’s 1/48 single engine WWII fighters are originally Hobbycraft molds (Bf-109, P-36/P40, F8F, La-7, F4U, etc.) In todays world with internet information and reviews available on nearly every model kit out there, and its’ orgins, at ones fingertips, a warning label of mold vintage is ‘nanny state’ thinking. If one knows the kit is an early cloned company effort to enter the modeling market, the grounds for complaining are pretty thin. It’s a knockoff.
I have to say that I am a fan of most Academy kits, the best bang for your buck I recon. The 1/48 kits I did (P-40 ,Spit, P-47,and F-86 ) and the 1/72 Typhoon all had good fit with enough detail to dress up it so desired.Sure it is not near the quality of Tamigawa, but still good.
I also did the Academy 48 size F-15e but had a very hard time with it, the F-14 was slightly better, but still a chalange to get sorted, same with the Md 500
All in all I enjoy academy.When I choose to build a kit, I will allways check out a few on-line reviews to get a feel for the build.
Theuns
I thought so too. I just completed their 1/48 P-38J, many of the parts needed filing and sanding. I also found the decals to be horrible. They would not stick!!!
Most of my experience with Academy has been with their WWII 1/48 aircraft - which I find are usually pretty good, if not the most detailed. I did build one of the F-16’s one time, and while it looks like an F-16 on the shelf, I remember being VERY disappointed in the cockpit. I had just come back from looking at real F-16’s at Luke AFB with a freind who was a pilot there, and I remember that the IP looked absolutely nothing like what I had seen at Luke. IIRC, it was all round holes without any square areas for the display panels in the real one.
Like many others, I’ve had problems with thier decals several times and usually buy replacement ones for whatever kit I plan to build.
Well if that new release F-4B also is poor fitting then it will really be a disaster for Academy…
Academy has always had issues with me. I found that decals won’t work, panel lines disappear, and fit doesn’t. I have actually stopped using the kit decals whenever I get an Academy kit.
You are not alone.
Klik
only 48scale strike eagle i would touch is revell. price blows away both hasegawa and academy.
Absolutely. That kit is awesome. I hate to say it, but if anyone has a problem getting it to go together then it’s user error. There is only one issue with that kit. Some putty, sandpaper, and elbow grease is all that takes to fix.
and it’s more accurate then hasegawas eagle. hasegawa reboxed a D model and added the CFT. the revell kit needs some upgrades to spring it up to date though. the kit represents a desert storm bird.
Yeah. There is a Resin update set available to bring it to modern standards. I’m just wrapping up this kit in DS markings. I like it so much I’ll be building it again. I’ll do the update for sure.