hey yall. im primarily a car modeler but i would love to get into aircraft as well. i havent built a plane since i was like 8 and it was a snap kit. just looking for some suggestions. im not really concerned with the subject matter or scale. im looking for something that is pretty cheap, easy to find, and fits together pretty well. also, it has to be a pretty good kit. i dont want a total pos, but i dont want a Tamiya Enzo Ferrai (best analogy i could think of). thanks a lot. later.
Jon
Jon,
I don’t know how this fits in to your “pretty cheap” criteria, but IMHO the Tamiya P-51 D would make an ideal kit for you. It has good detail, great fit, minimal parts, reasonable decals and builds into a really nice model.
Cheers
Darren
you have some good choices out there. some hasegawa and tamiya kits are well detailed and reasonably priced. what kind of subjects are you interested in? the 1/72 lines are good with plenty of detail.
joe
Academy’s 1/72 F-4U was my first airplane kit, nice easy build and only $8.99 at my hobby shop.
i really like World War 2 stuff. ive got a lot of references about that era, but not much before or after. plus, at my annual local airshow, they mostly have what they call “warbirds” which are WW2-era planes. so ive got pretty close quarter access to some actual restored stuff. im probably going to an LHS or Hobby Lobby in the next couple of days, and ill pick something up and see what you guys think about it. im still open to suggestions though. later.
Jon
If you like WW2 stuff, and you want something relatively quick and simple, I really liked the way my 1/72 italieri F6F-5 Hellcat turned out, pretty simple to build with a nice looking result. I think it was about 10 bucks canadian. As far as I know, its the same as the hasegawa kit… (anyone know for sure?)
If youre looking at 1/48 im not so sure on that, shelf space is at a bit of a premium around here.
If you see a kit that you like by academy, theyre usually a little cheaper than the hasegawa or tamiya. Just ask in the forums b4 you buy it to make sure it isnt a piece of [censored]
Hey, Brother -
For your first plane, I’d say a WWll single prop fighter from Tamiya, Hasegawa, or Academy will be a good place to start.
They’re well engineered, usually very easy to build, and you normally don’t have to spend heaps of time “making things FIT”.
I also have a bunch of 1/72 Hasegawa WWll fighters - and they’re great - but I haven’t yet built any of the Tamiya 1/72 scale fighters - I hear they’re even better than the Hasegawa kits.
Go for it - and have fun!
well, took a trip to Hobby Lobby today and got a kit. its the Testor’s 1/72 F4U Corsair. it looks really simple, and it was only five bucks! i also got an awesome deal on the Revell '32 Ford (someone had bought it, got home, opened it, and found out it had the wrong instructions. so they took it back and they put it on the shelf as is for half price.), but thats another story. hoping to get some work done on it tomorrow after school. might even post some pics. later.
Jon