Hi all,
been away from the forum for a while, but I am glad now to come back with my latest project completed, the Meng 1:48 E/A-18G Growler. I had enjoyed so much the Meng F/A-18E that I wanted to continue with the family…
It took me longer than usual to complete it not only due to less spare time available for it, but also because I used a lot of aftermarket parts, which required a lot of efforts, care and patience , and therefore time, to be completed without damage (well, almost no damage..I had to make some repairs here and there…). I have used Qunta 3D Cockpit decals, ASK Ejection Seats, Rockit Landing Gear, Flight Line Resin Canopy Frame, Reskit Exhaust Nozzles and Reskit AIM-120 and AGM-88 missiles. All of the above were worth all the time spent on them.
The kit itself is a joy to be build and parts fit together with very little if any need for sanding. Aftermarket parts fit very precisely to the Meng frame, and the out of the box Cartograph decals are superb.
I painted in the typical two greys scheme (Light and Dark Ghost Grey) applied highly thinned over a grey primer and a white marbling. The difference between upper and lower surfaces grey is very subtile and barely noticeable, which is anyway what you can appreciate on real world operational Growlers. Being this specific model a land based aircraft I tried to apply light weathering unlike the extreme application typical of carried based aircraft.
Coming after the Meng F/A-18E it means I have spent almost half a year on the Hornet family, which, despite I have loved both projects, makes me feel willing for a new subject for my next project…
Thanks for watching…I hope you enjoy the result…and please feel free to add comments and/or criticisism..
Ciao
That’s a beauty. Really great mottled finish. Great to hear the Meng kit goes together well. I recently finished the 1/48 Hasegawa F/A-15C and had fit issues. I have their growler and am hesitant to go thru that again so maybe I’ll sell it and pick up the Meng. Again - excellent job.
That turned out really nice. I especially like the restraint in the weathering. There’s plenty going on with the finish, but nothing jumps out at me as being overdone.
The Growler is also right in my wheelhouse. I’ve become really interested in aircraft with unusual missions, particularly EW aircraft.
I actually have the Meng F/A-18F in my stash, and now I kind of wish I’d bought the Growler instead. When I bought the F, I really hadn’t developed much of an opinion yet about the kinds of aircraft I wanted to build. There’s probably another lesson in there somewhere about overbuying for the stash.
But seeing how beautifully yours turned out, and reading your report on the kit, definitely has me energized to get mine out and build it.
@keavdog I can relate to your Hasegawa frustration.
When I was buying kits 30-some years ago, there weren’t nearly as many choices as there are today, and I remember Hasegawa being one of the premium, high-end brands. If you wanted the really good kit, Hasegawa was often where you looked.
Coming back to the hobby all these years later, I’ve been surprised at how much my opinion has changed. Every Hasegawa kit I’ve attempted so far has had some kind of serious issue that turned the build into a much bigger fight than I expected.
Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by some of the newer tooling available now, but Hasegawa doesn’t feel nearly as “premium” to me as it did 30 years ago.
Fully agree… I came back to this hobby about one and a half year ago after a break of about 35 years, and at that time Hasegawa was really one high-end brand, probably the only real alternative to Tamiya. I restarted with an Hasegawa 1/48 F-14 which I had bought exactly 35 years ago and never started… comparing the build of that kit with the two Meng Hornets that I have built in these last months, it is like night and day.
Now that’s funny. Your story is even closer to mine than I realized.
I came back after about 35 years too, and I actually have two of those Hasegawa F-14s still sitting in my stash that I started back then. The cockpits are built, and that’s about where they have been sitting for the last 35 years.
So I know exactly what you mean about coming back and discovering how much kits have changed. Hasegawa was pretty much the gold standard in my head when I left the hobby.
Now I’m debating whether I want to pick those two back up again or just go buy the Tamiya kit. It’s supposed to be so good.
I could not get the intakes to fit on that F-14A - tried all the tricks I had and it was nope. Too bad, the rest of the build was coming along nicely. Ended up giving the kit away as is to a guy looking for parts
Thanks. I think you just helped me make a decision I’ve been wrestling with.
I’ve been looking at those two F-14s thinking the intakes would be a challenge, but I’m a good enough builder now that I could probably figure them out. I’ve also seen people solve the problem by putting FOD covers over the intakes, but that always felt a little like admitting defeat.
But the more I think about it, the question isn’t whether I can fight my way through these kits. It’s whether I want to.
I’ve got a shelf full of really interesting kits I’m genuinely excited about building. Every time something new catches my attention, I start thinking, “Oh, I want to build that!” I don’t want to spend months fighting an old kit just because I happen to own it.
So I just officially sent both of these into the Bucket of Doom — the bin where kits go to eventually belong to some other lucky soul.
When I really want to build an F-14, I’ll buy the Tamiya kit and enjoy myself. I’d rather build four good kits in a year than spend a year proving I can beat one bad one.
It wasn’t the issue with inside the intakes - no FOD covers needed. They didn’t fit to the contour of the plane. Like trying to glue a two by four to a basketball. If you figure them out please post up, love to see the solution.
I actually saved a YouTube video that walks through getting those intakes to fit, figuring I’d need it when the time came. As I remember it, there was a particular modification you had to make to one of the parts, and once you did that everything fit together pretty well. I’ve also seen other builders finally give up and put FOD covers over them.
But after this conversation, I don’t think that time is ever coming for me. They’re already in the Bucket of Doom. Someone else can solve the Hasegawa intake puzzle!
It’s kind of a shame, too. When I bought these 30-some years ago, Hasegawa was the premium name and these were expensive kits — I think I paid around $50 each for them. You expected that premium price to buy you a premium kit. You have to wonder how much fit and engineering problems like these hurt Hasegawa’s reputation over the years and opened the door for companies like Tamiya and Meng to surpass them.
The lesson is you shouldn’t have stopped at one F/A-18! Had you bought a few of each type you would be set.
You build one -18 you will build several -18’s…….. ask me how I know ?
That’s what happened when I built the F-111, before I built it I thought it was an ugly airplane then I built it.
Now I think it’s the best looking jet of the 60’s……
