1/48 Aero Team Sukhoi SU-25 

Peruvian Air Force

by Dony Alva 

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  Peru Independence Day 2005

 

Aero Team’s Sukhoi 25 kit is more accurate in shape than Monogram's kit regarding the real airplane, but this does not mean that it is totally correct, Aero Team’s kit demands more work to assemble than Monogram’s; but, the plastic's thickness allows making corrections with sandpaper and another tools and obtaining the best model. Below I'll show some changes that I made to this kit.  

·The nose was replaced with one that it was produced in resin, which was designed by me.

·Correction at the very top of air intakes of the turbines with the wing's union.

·The vertical rudder was corrected by cutting 3 mm along the rear and by reducing the thickness in almost 2 mm using a sandpaper, but previously, the vertical rudder inside was filled with resin in order to remake the details lost in the reduction work regarding the thickness issues.

·I replaced the K - 36 seat with one that was produced in resin, which was designed by me.

·The kit’s lateral parts were corrected, chiefly at the same altitude of the main trains section.

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·Professional model’s brand chaff flare's launcher were modified 50 per cent to get the right shape.

·I replaced the air take of the vertical rudder base for one made of plastic and metal.

·Plastic ribbons were added in the inside of the cockpit to obtain high relief in the inner structure.

·Speed brake’s movable system were built in metal.

·Pitot tubes were built out of hypodermic needles by lathing and welding little tin wings to them.

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·Fore-train height was reduced by many millimeters.

·Cannon was replaced by a pair of hypodermic needles adapting them to the muzzle.

·All weapons which belonged to the current configuration are made of resin; however, in the case of the Kh-58E and S-25LD missiles, I used as a platform from the resin kit made by my friend Ernesto Ponte. These missiles were modified in order to obtain another variant out of every missile; besides the B-13L rocket launcher was designed by me and produced in resin.

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·Cockades, buntings, numbers and Grupo11’s logo decals are of own production by serigraphy and impression laser, the rest of the little yellow decals were obtained from 4 different kits.

·Intake nozzles for the jet engines were replaced by two made of bronze.

·Part brand S48-042 photo etched was used, also the kit’s own photo etched.

·Posterior wheels were lathed to shape them right and also around 50 smaller modifications were made in all the kit.

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The section which took more time to build was the speed brakes because this mechanism consists of 23 metallic parts and 4 plastic parts by speed brake kit. These metallic parts were built in steel and bronze and welded with tin.

On 1997, when I first assembled this kit, I built a speed brake entirely in plastic but it was too weak and moreover I could not get the right thickness.

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The cockpit is almost completely scratch made, except the photo etched board which has some tin welded details. The rest was made mainly in resin, plastic, aluminum and bronze and steel wire.

 

The protective armor panel above the headrest was replaced with one made of aluminum more than one millimeter thick.

 

To stick metal with plastic or with resin is advisable to use epoxy based glue since it has a better adherence than cyanoacrylate.

 

A good replacement for putty used to join plastic with plastic or resin with glued characteristics is cyanoacrylate mixed with fine talcum, this is dusted right over the area where cyanoacrylate was applied and the remaining talcum is blown. A few minutes later it can be sanded with sandpaper.

 

It is advisable to repeat this step many times if the cavity to fill is relatively wide and not to do it in only one step.  This technique is good when we need to cover the bas-reliefs made by mistake and we do not have to wait a long time as with other putties; moreover, its hardness is similar to plastic and therefore when it is sandpapered, the plastic and the putty have the same erosion.

 

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Paint:

 

The 2 main colors used were tinged in acrylic based on thinner, guiding me with a paint sample of the real airplane.

 

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I want to thank very much my friends at the Talara’s air base. They allowed me in many instances to take photos and measurements of their aircraft, without this help I could not have satisfactorily concluded this model.

 

Dony

 

Photos © by Gaston Roca and text © by Dony Alva