My 1/48 su-35 from Academy Su-27 + Wolfpack Conversion and other goodies

grobber

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Joined
Jul 31, 2010
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30
Hi All
I have always thought that this was one of the coolest looking airplanes ever the evolutionary development of the Su-27, the Su-25M also known as the Su-35.
The Sukhoi Su-35 (Russian: Сухой Су-35, NATO reporting name: Flanker-E) is a single-seat, twin-engine supermaneuverable multirole fighter. It is a derivative of the Su-27 'Flanker', and was initially known as the Su-27M. More than a dozen of these were built with some used by the Russian Knights aerobatic demonstration team. The Su-35 had been offered to many countries, including India, Brazil, China and South Korea.
In the 1980s, Sukhoi was looking to upgrade its high-performance Su-27. The resultant Su-35 embodies aerodynamic refinements to give it more manoeuvrability, greatly enhanced avionics, longer range, and a more powerful engine. The first prototype, converted from a production Su-27, made its maiden flight in June 1988. The Su-35 was further developed into the Su-37, which has thrust-vectoring capabilities, and the Su-35BM, classified as 4++ generation fighter by its manufacturer. The new model entered into serial production as the Su-35S for the Russian Air Force in 2010.
For such a cool looking airplane there are no good kits in it in 1/48 (note with my luck as I start this expect a new surprise release from Tamiya or Hasegawa) so I will need to use a whole lot of after market with an Academy Su-27 in there as well
So what am I using

• Academy 1/48 Su-27
• Wolfpack Su-35 conversion
• Eduard exterior PE
• Aires Cockpit
• Aires Exhaust cans
• Quickboost aerials
• Begemot decal
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Rob
 
SWEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!! I'm looking forward to how you fiddle with this Wolfpack conversion...I've been considering picking one up, too, but for either the 33 or 37...
 
Greetings all here is the first installment of my epic build. Most of us when we build the plane start with the cockpit, given the nature of this conversion I will be starting by breaking up the saws and hacking up the fuselage. What happens after cutting this beautiful of kit up, well I might be happy or it may be heading to the trash can.

So here we have the fuselage ensure that some engineer spent a lot of effort to get this mould to come out this way.

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Well I finally built up nerve, broke up my saws and tentatively started cutting. It was not too bad but the Wolfpack instructions leave a lot to be desired. When all was said and done I ended up with this, most of the front was removed, leading edges removed wheel well removed.

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So how did it turn out? Overall I’m really happy with the fit, there will certainly be some filling in my future but it is coming together much better than expected

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Let me know what you think
Rob
 
not too shabby sir! at least you dont have to add weight in the nose cone with all that resin!!
 
Greetings all I hope that you had a wonderful Easter. It was pretty busy but I found a little time to work on my Flanker. For those who have built this kit there is one big mistake if you look at the main gear wheel wells they are not properly cut out, so basically half the wheel well as covered up by the bottom fuselage half. It is a pretty easy fix but the Wolfpack conversion gives a couple pieces of resin that you are supposed to insert. But took a look and figured it would be easier just to trim the plastic as opposed to trying to fit in the resin pieces

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If you’ve never seen the kit is essentially two real big halves top and bottom, So in preparation of joining the halves. Because of this construction you need to get the cockpit tub wheel wells painted before joining the hlaves. For the wheel Wells I checked a number or references and there appears to be a number of colours used by the Flanker family, I opted to Tamiya XF-22 and used Citadel colours to pick out the details

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The cockpit was given a base coat of AKAH. Grey Darkblue. AKAH paints come from Russia and are an excellent match for Russian planes. I wish they were easier to get because they are great to brush or spray. Details on the cockpit were picked up the Tester, citadel, and Tamiya

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Because of the amount of sanding that I have in front of me I am going to add the cockpit details later so they would not get too dusty. For the details A plan on cherry picking between the Aires and Wolfpack sets, looking at the seats are I think I will be using the Aires one (Left)

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Once this was done I could concentrate on joining up the fuselage and the conversion parts. In general the fit is pretty good but because of lifting body we will need to smooth out all the joins, at the same time will want to keep all the rivet detail, so characteristic of Russian planes

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I used the three or four types a putty and sanding sticks and a pretty happy with how it went together

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The other piece that need to be replaced with a stinger of the Flanker

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And after making a lot of dust here is where we stand


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Let know what you think and I will be updating again soon

Rob
 
sure is shaping up nicely! will you have to go back and rescribe some panels?

There sure will be. I tried to to protect the fiddly areas with masking tape but there is some work to be done.

Luckily the part kit is pretty low for such a big plane

Rob
 
This has to be the sexiest jet fighter ever built. Looking forward to your progress, off to a great start BTW.
 
Hi all

So quick update after doing a tonne of body work on the plane I decided to dig myself out of the dust and work on some of the details. So one of the differences between Su 25 and the 35 is that the 35 has dual nose wheel, the Wolfpack conversion provides a metal nose gear with resin detail and a PE mud Flap

The mud flap is pretty complex and made up of no less than 7 pieces.

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I was trying to figure out how to do the bends and ended up making a jig of some spare parts

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He worked out pretty well and I think I got the shape pretty much nailed
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The nose landing gear was also put together a clean up the middle and added the 11 or so resin pieces to it.

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Rob
 
Hello another update on my Flanker. I wanted to take a break from body work so focused on some miscellaneous bits

First off Wheel doors, there are lots injector pin marks

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Using my punch I made some disks to fill these in

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Secondly the intakes, the flanker has a built in FOD screen so that hides a lot of the details but there is still a bunch to do.
Starting with the injection pins these were sanded and the intake walls thinned to be more scale appropriate

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The kit has some PE FOD screens and the eduard PE replaces the louvers

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And after a bit of origami

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The Fan blades

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Join it all together

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And back to the body work to blend it back to the plane

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Final I added the nose

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Back to sanding

Rob
 
Hi again back with an update.

So one thing I am quickly finding out is that the Flanker lineage is very complicated, it turns out that I am actually doing as Su-37 (terminator) I guess that the main difference between that and the Su-35 is the addition of thrust vectoring nozzles. The way that I planned on representing these are they have a droop (like flaps) when the plane is at rest. For this I will be using the Aires Exhaust (right)

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This is actually a pretty happy modification, on closer examination the Aires Exhaust has much smaller diameter then the kit part

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And does not fit the kit the best

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With a bit of careful cutting and sanding I was able to mate the parts up. Based on my references the turkey feathers appear in 3 section so it works out OK

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These were then patented up to give good burned look

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As I am getting closer to finishing I started to plan my painting, The tail has significant metal work to it so I think it will be easier to paint the metal then paint the camouflage. For this I am going to use Gunze metalizers. I started with a Stainless Steel tone. I then check my references and the metal seems to be much darker than that, there is also a very distinctive fork pattern burned in just before the turkey feathers. Using my base stainless steel tone and some putty I tried to replicate it.

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In top of this I shot a coat of iron

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At first it does not look great then I got to buffing using q tips, paper towel, old brushes, and scouring pads and you get some great effect (Need to play with the camera to pick them up better)

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Beyond that I have being gluing bits on to get ready for paint



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Rob
 

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