Developed to defend against the former Soviet Union’s Cold War submarine fleet, Grumman’s S-2 Tracker was the U.S. Navy’s first purpose-designed anti-submarine warfare aircraft.
Kinetic Model Kits’ all-new 1/48 scale S-2E/S-2G Tracker comes on eight sprues of soft, light gray plastic with finely engraved panel lines. Builders’ options include: open or closed bomb bay doors; straight or folded wings; open or closed crew hatches (although you would want to leave the hatches closed unless you want to scratchbuild an interior); optional rocket pods (single pieces with mold lines that require extra cleanup); posable arresting hook; and a submarine-detection MAD boom that can be shown deployed if you choose.
There are markings for only one aircraft, but the decals, designed by Fightertown Decals and printed by Cartograf, are flawless. The wheel wells feature plenty of detail, and gear and bomb bay doors are nice and thin. The one-piece engines lack depth but look OK after painting. Wheel hubs are molded separately, allowing you to paint them without masking before adding the two-piece tires.
Construction begins with the cockpit. It was pretty straightforward, but I found the level of detail disappointing — no side consoles, no side-wall detail, and no center console. The instrument panel has raised squares devoid of detail; there is an overhead console, but it has no surface detail at all. The crew seats, too, are basic, and, though the rear cockpit bulkhead has an opening for the aft crew compartment, there’s no detail there, either; I blanked it off with a scrap of sheet styrene. The bomb bay lacks detail, too. Using strip styrene, I made up some rib detail to spice things up. Detail in the nose-wheel and main-gear wells was fine; I don’t know why the cockpit and bomb bay were overlooked.
The fuselage halves went together with no problems. The fit was good, needing only a little bit of Tamiya putty to fill some shallow sink marks. Adding the main wings and engine nacelles was no problem, either. However, there’s no interior detail for the prominent searchlight on the right wing; with its big, clear lens, the absent detail is very noticeable. (Hopefully, an aftermarket company will come to the rescue.)
Despite the instructions, I decided to leave the main wings off until the end of construction since their spars fit tightly into slots in the fuselage halves; I felt this would make the decaling and painting much easier than with the wings attached.
The two-piece canopy was thin and clear, and it fit the fuselage just fine.
The instructions were vague and incomplete concerning the interior and engine painting instructions and placement of antennas. (I did find the box art a useful reference for the antennas.)
I used Mr. Color gloss gray (No. 16440) thinned with Mr. Color leveling thinner; it was the first time I had used these products, and I couldn’t have been happier. The gloss is easy to apply, fast-drying, and an excellent surface for decals. For the gloss white, I used Tamiya acrylic paint thinned with Tamiya lacquer thinner — also easy and fast, allowing me to handle the model more quickly than most paints.
The Cartograf decals performed perfectly! I used a tiny bit of Mr. Mark Softer to get them to conform to surfaces.
Kinetic’s Tracker is fairly easy to build and captures the distinctive look of the S-2F; mine took 30 hours to put together. With the nice fit, low parts count, and perfectly performing decals, I would recommend this kit to intermediate modelers who think they can handle the complex masking required for painting.