Having only recently come onto the scene, Kinetic Models has been offering up some nice subjects, some unique to Kinetic (like the 1/48 scale E-2C Hawkeye), others in direct competition (such as the 1/48 scale F-16 family). So, how has Kinetic done with this new kit?
Initial inspection of the kit’s contents looks promising. Cockpit detail is well-represented and fairly complete, if a little on the soft side. Four very nice ejection seats lack only harnesses. Both front and rear instrument panels are accurate in detail for instrument placement and type. Exterior surface detail is engraved and fairly accurate, but inconsistent in depth and width. (It did accept an oil wash very well, however.)
The decal sheet is designed by Fighter-town Decals, printed by Cartograf, and is spectacular. They apply easily; there was only one spot where I had silvering, but this was more because of my poor surface preparation than the decal quality.
The big thing with this kit is the folding-wing option: a first as an out-of-the-box option on any A or EA-6 kit. It’s a little tricky to get lined up when mounting the outer wing panels, but otherwise well done. It’s not noted in the instructions, but there would need to be some removal of the wings’ working detail to build this model with the wings down. I would have loved to have seen dropped flaps and slats as options, but I realize this would raise the difficulty and price of the kit considerably.
The way the wheels are constructed was new to me. Kinetic provides one-piece wheel hubs with tire halves that sandwich the hub. I was initially skeptical but found it to be very nice indeed! Simply spray the hub white and the tire halves black. Then assemble the three pieces: glue one tire to the hub from the inside, then glue the other tire to the first tire around the outside. Once the join is dry, correct the seam around the outside of the tire and touch up the black paint. This is the easiest way I’ve found of painting wheels with no masking at all.
Unfortunately, the instructions are the low point of this kit. Numerous parts are mislabeled or not numbered in the instructions, so you will need to check the diagrams to determine what parts go where. The painting directions are fairly sparse, too, so good references are essential. I didn’t have access to the Internet or any reference books while I was building this kit, so my semi-educated guesswork filled in many of the finer details. The kit box has a nice photo of the actual aircraft, which certainly helped.
Another disappointment was how thick the wings’ trailing edges were. The tailplanes trailing edges, on the other hand, are almost razor sharp. In fact, I managed to cut myself on one of them!
The paint-scheme diagram doesn’t match the photo, which shows no red-white-and-blue striping on the underside of the wing. It may be that the instructions depict a later time frame when the stripes were there. I went by the photo.
Fit was generally very good, with a little filler required along the top fuselage centerline join and either side of the lower-fuselage insert. There are some nasty seams inside the engine air inlets that I left alone, due to deadlines. There were no problems in assembly except, as noted before, trying to hold the outer wing panels while mounting them folded.
A tinted canopy would have been nice, as it was fairly noticeable on the real aircraft. I ran out of time to tint my canopies, as I had left them for last.
I really enjoyed this model; it took me two weeks of 3- to 4-hour evening sessions, much of it for painting and shading the color scheme (I used Testors Model Master enamels).
Kinetic’s EA-6B Prowler has certainly improved on the company’s earlier efforts. A continuation of that trend will make its kits increasingly popular.