David R Lentz, Columbus, Ohio, USA I had two of this kit, one to build with the landing gear down, the canopy raised, with all the access panels, ordnance bays, etc., all open to view, the crew chief and service crew making visual inspection; and the other would have a USAF pilot seated in the cockpit, gear up, in flight approaching 20,000 metres, well exceeding Mach two, as the winged predator much as its namesake closes upon a cavalier intruder suddenly unwitting prey . . . . Unfortunately, with both kits, I could not make the upper and lower halves fit together correctly to close properly; no matter how I adjusted, retried, shifted, fiddled, struggled, even pleaded, the two halves obstinately remained three or four millimetres (3-4 mm; round 1/8th of an inch; 0.125”) awry, never for the twain to meet. I in my exasperation chuckled them back into the boxes, stowing them upon a shelf. Hasegawa, I want back my $90.00 each. Aside from you poor design, I have a personal reason.
Beautiful composition and sound! Fascinating neoclassical style with a little jazz mixed in! Very cool visuals as well! :-) I compose for piano and keyboards, too! Best wishes, Michelle
I'm also a 100% positive I built the Hasegawa 1/48 Phantom before 1986. Was the colorful VF-51 CAG bird you show on the Tamiya box. I built it while still single and living in barracks so it would have been 83 or earlier.
Amazingly Hasegawa is still selling those pre-2000 F-4 kits today. I have in my stash an F-4G from 1990 that I will review soon. Thank you for your interest and comment.
Ignore the trolls especially the Auzzie t**t! Nice review - I’m building the Airfix 1:72 and it’s amazing how well you get to know the individual parts, so seeing this, you can immediately see the differences in the bigger scale I’m curcurious, what are the paint marks on some of the sprues for? I can’t figure that out!
Thank you for your comment. The dark spots on some sprues are actually shadows caused by the oblique lighting used to photograph them, because of the light coloured plastic, it was quite difficult to show details otherwise. Tamiya used intricate shapes on their sprue trees following the contour of the parts to provide maximum protection.
@@keunghoa Ah ha - my theory was that the sprues with the black paint were marked either if they needed painting before building in or that you had sanded/cleaned them up while still on the sprue. I was wrong with both. Sounds like you animated a photo - my assumption was a steady hand on a video camera, hence my confusion! Thanks for putting my mind to rest!
Not just Tamiya, also Meng for the FA-18E, the F-106A, Eduard for the P-51D and Tempest, GWH for the F-15E, you should check out these videos as well and also other people’s reviews on the internet, there are plenty of them, check them out. I wish Tamiya would pay me for praising their kits! Let me know if you can find a 1/32 Corsair that is better than the Tamiya one.
Sadly there are a number of issues with the Hobby Boss 1/48 Black Widow kits. (I have their P-61C kit, which I may cross-kit with either a Monogram P-61B or a GWH P-61B kit for a more accurate C model.) Firstly the cross section on the upper main fuselage behind the cockpit to the rear cockpit is far too angular. There should be a small clear curve on the shoulders. (Their P-61 C kit has the same fuselage parts) The nose radome is too short, being the same radome as their P-61A. The B and C models had a longer nose radome for a more advanced, Heavier, Radar fit. Lastly the main landing gear bay (and doors) are simply wrong. The Main Gear Bay had no rear Bulkhead. In the P-61A this was an issue because debris from rough airfields would be kicked up into the rear boom by the huge wheels and tires, and, after a time to accumulate, would unbalance the plane. This was due to the two single doors being open on landing and stayed open until after takeoff. To Fix this Northrop divided the gear door where the leg was into a very small door for the leg (Which remained open on the ground) and the rest would open to extend and retract the gear, then close again before landing and after takeoff. All would close over the gear bay when the Landing gear was fuilly retracted, thus essentially sealing off the bay itself In flight, but NOT for takeoff/landing. This was introduced with the B model and ALL subsequent models, including the F-15A Reporter Photo recon version. The Great Wall Hobby kit does correctly include parts correct for each variant. BTW the wing spoilerons are also incorrectly depicted, they lay flat on the upper wing in flight, not retracted vertically into the wing. (Compare with either the Monorgram/Revell or GWH kits.) The GWH kits also include full intake ducting on the Wing leading edges, something the Hobby Boss 1.32 kit also does! So why is there only Frontal grill pieces provided here?) Last is an issue in the Decals. The Stars and Bars for the wings are too large - they were the same size as the samll Stars and Bars on the fuselage. Similarly the red walkway strips are far too thick, about twice as braod as the original walkways. I think the red serial numbers for the tails are alo too big, but check references for that, some were larger. They are also missing a number of "No Step" stencils. I am also unsure if option 2 "Sleepy Time Gal" had pinup nose art on both sides - that would have been unusual, but not unknown.
Thank you so much for your very detailed comment about the Hobby Boss P-61B. You have raised many issues I was not aware of so I am grateful for these as they will benefit others who may contemplate buying this kit. The GWH P-61B is certainly at a different level for accuracy and finer details, this would be my choice for a definitive representation of this most iconic night fighter.
Hasegawa kits from late 1990s/early 2000 were considered classic for their high quality and accurate shapes. I have built their F16 and F15 without any problems, just need a bit of patience and follow instructions carefully.
You are right the Gekko reminds me of the Bf-110 from the front also, but I think the Gekko has a cleaner design, such as the single vertical fin vs the smaller double rudders of the Bf-110.
Many thanks! I also like the early jets from the 1950s and 1960s. The F-102 was replaced by the F-106, another great jet from the same manufacturer, Convair. There’s also a review of this jet on my site.
Wow! You can now not only hear the bass but also FEEL it!!! And the drums really take on a new dimension: the kicks are really meaty and the cymbals and percussion feel so airy! Thank you RU-vid for reproducing such quality audio track.
One should also factor-in cost and availability, both of which favor the old Hasegawa kit. As a personal side note, I'm not a fan of the simulated avionics bays found in the Meng kit. Not having built one I can't say with certainty but to my eyes they look like two more areas that will need filler, sanding, and rescribing of panel lines surrounding the bays when not built in the item position.
Thank you for your feedback. I agree with your comment about the avionics bays. Personally I am not a fan of display of openings in a finished model. However the Meng kit makes up for this with its superior general detail of external surfaces compared to the Hasegawa kit.
Excellent video, thanks for posting and telling us modelers of recommendations, problems, and things to watch out for. You mentioned about fit, but would you also recommend any additions, like photo-etch or accessories?? Look forward to your reply.
Thank you for watching the video. As it was, I did not see any need for pe or accessories as the level of detail out of box was already very high. The most fiddly part of the build was the set of shtora units (red lights) either side of the gun tube, as they are meant to swivel horizontally after assembly.
I have the Hasegawa 1/48 F-4G, the Zoukei-Mura 1/48 F-4F and F-4S, the Academy 1/48 F-4B and now the Tamiya 1/48 F-4B, so the claim that Tamiya’s is the best is based on what I have compared it to. My opinion is based on value for money, quality of the kit, ease of build.
Some kits from those years were of better quality than newer ones today, generally tamiya’s kits were well engineered and easy to build, however choose carefully as Tamiya used to sell other brands as Tamiya (italeri kits)…
When speed was top priority anything that helped seemed a good idea, front line use in real battles showed versatility was more critical, such as ground attacks and strafing, and the P-51 was good at this as well. Modern fighters no longer aim for speed above all, instead are built for multi purpose use. Mach 2 was the holy grail in fighter design in the 1970’s and up until recently but not today, the F-35 is deemed good enough at Mach 1.6/1.8.
This is a really good kit. Great fit, excellent armament options, two canopies. However, it is only good for a small portion of the F-16's flying out there. It is only giving one engine option (no big/small mouth intake option) and does not provide the drag chute at the tail. So, no Taiwanese, Greek, Turkish, Belgian, Norwegian and so on without an aftermarket set. By the way, the resin aftermarkets for this area come at a cost of roughly 50% the kit value. Another area for improvement (like with most Tamiya kits) are the decals.
Tamiya is not known for releasing multiple variants of an aircraft, Hasegawa provides more in this area, but then Hasegawa’s kits have their own idiosyncrasies…
I sympathise with your feeling on this. After viewing a few build reviews of the Revell 1/48 FA-18, I can see the complexity of putting together multiple parts to form the main body, creating many areas of problem fit. Unfortunately not many RU-vidrs will tell you honestly how bad a kit can be. Parts breakdown can be a good indicator of any possible fit issues, so look at this when choosing a kit.
Building one right now. My first One-Oh-Wonder in 72 scale. Surprisingly large. It goes together well. The nose needed some filler. Otherwise the nose will have a slight concave shape. I love that sharp edges of the wings and intakes. Nice kit, albeit sparse in detail.
Hasegawa was probably the best manufacturer of 1/72 scale kits, their aircraft kits captured the right shape and detail of the real ones, not surprising they are still on sale today, thanks for your feedback.
@@keunghoa I didn’t make myself clear, my apologies. I mean the decal of the fighting falcon.I also love the new design of the Fighting falcon Block 70/72.
Nothing can come close to TAMIYA's model kits, the detail, quality of plastic, fit, its all amazing (the older kits dont have a lot of detail but the fit is still there) Nothing bad to say about tamiya kits EVER, and I never have to use any putty whatsoever
Thank you for your comment. You’re right, even their current catalog still features kits first released many years ago, and they are still so way ahead of the more recent releases from other makers. In Japan, Tamiya’s slogan is “we are on your side”, meaning they aim to make their kits as modeler-friendly as possible, their latest offerings are proof of this thinking: advanced engineering, faultless fit, and most importantly real pleasure to build for all modellers .
@@keunghoa 100% agreed. I built a super old Tamiya 1/48 FlakPanzer Gepard from like 1998? It went together better than a recent 2017 Hasegawa kit that I put together. I'm just astounded at the level of consistency tamiya produces.
You should be a bit more cautious when saying EVER, or NEVER. There are several horrible kits by Tamiya out there. Granted, most of them are not produced by Tamiya and are reboxings instead but still. Take the 1/72 jets like F-18 or Su-34 for example. These are Italeri kits re-boxed by Tamiya. They are not good kits and if I had to buy them i would rather pay 5-10 euros less for the Italeri boxing with the huge Cartograph decal sheet instead of the horrible Tamiya decals. There are good and bad kits in all brands and maybe Tamiya has a higher percentage of good ones but they are not even close to 100% as many would like to believe.
@@andreasvulcan_gr2595 Thank you for your comments. No manufacturer is perfect especially if you take into account everything they make. The latest kits from Tamiya are miles ahead compared to some of their older kits. I still remember the horrible 1/72 Su-33 which was just an SU-27 with canards glued on! Reboxing kits from other manufacturers did not do Tamiya much good either. If you want more versions of the F-16 than Tamiya can give, consider Hasegawa’s kits. Aircraft technology changes quickly, not all new data is available to kit manufacturers to include in their latest kits. It would be interesting to see who will come up with a model of the F-16V block 70/72 first…
The Zoukei Mura Phantoms are in a different class, very detailed and come with large number of parts, so will probably appeal more to the more dedicated modellers, but they are definitely among the best Phantoms available today.
After building the kit, everything is 10/10 Well beside one thing The decals are godamn bad, extremely thick, not even softner could get the details below visible, and the sharkmouth was awfull to apply
That’s intentional: the low key introduction lulls the listener into a false sense of calm until waken up by the loud drum , good for waking you up in the morning! The accent of the piece is upbeat mood accentuated by a driving drum and percussion sequences.
Thank you for commenting. It will be interesting to see how their new F-35A compares with that of Meng and Kitty Hawk, especially in regard to surface detail.
I have long time ago assembled a Tornado jet plane from Revell. Only difference was that scale of the model kit was in scale 1/72. And it was interesting experience, since these were the beginnings of my modeling as well.
Welcome to the channel and thank you for your feedbacks. I also started modeling in 1/72 scale and felt quite intimidated by big scale kits, but after working on a couple of Hasegawa kits in 1/48 scale, I was converted. The larger scale allows more details but also makes for more work!
