After a long wait,I finally got my hands on this kit last weekend, (it only appeared here in the UK about 3/4 weeks ago) and[wow] I take my hat off to the guys at Trumpeter!!!
This is one helleva kit, and one of the best I’ve ever seen in this scale, Trumpeter include a multitude of goodies including etched parts for the instrument panel and cockpit bulkheads, detailed weapons bays with KH-55 cruise missiles - including six examples of the long range version with conformal tanks, seperate flaps and slats, and a white metal undercarriage - encased in plastic parts, to support the weight of the finished model!
The whole model is finely engraved and appears pretty accurate! I’ve picked up a couple of minor errors, the engine cans are I believe slightly short, and the missiles slightly too long, but they are very minor errors and not readily obvious!
The paint guide seems reasonably accurate, although the interior of the engine intakes are black - not white, and I’m dubious about the ‘interior green’ for the weapons bay, the only pics I have show a grey roof and wood colour brown sides, I would strongly recommend the RED STAR Volume 9 Tupolev TU-160 ‘Blackjack’ as a source of reference, I’ve searched the net for additional interior pics of the weapons and undercarriage bays, but come up with very little so far, if anyone can recommend any additional sources of reference I’d love to hear about them.
When this bird is built its gonna be something else, but anyone building it is gonna need plenty of room, the wings are always swept forward when on the ground to stop the aircraft tipping up on its tail, the wings can only be swept back under controlled circumstances when the tail is supported.
It may be me, but I can’t help noticing that virtually all the availiable models of the TU-160 seem pretty accurate, I suspect that manufacturers might have paid a visit to the Ukraine and examined the aircraft in the Poltova aviation museum - providing its still there!