Academy 1/144 scale USAF B-2A ‘Stealth Bomber’ plastic model kit review

Academy’s all-new tooling of the 1/144 scale USAF B-2A “Stealth Bomber” sports beautiful detail, great parts fits, and several options for the builder in a kit that’s fairly easy to assemble and produces a highly-detailed replica.

Opening the kit, the instructions are concise and explain every step in the assembly well. Painting and markings locations are on a separate two-page insert. Jumping out at me before nipping any parts off the sprues was Academy’s innovative system of making sprue identifiers visible from either side. I appreciated that along with the large, legible part numbers.

Fine parts, such as the landing gear, are beautifully molded with no flash. A rudimentary cockpit is provided with a flight deck and an aft bulkhead, plus pilot and mission commander seats. The ducting for the engine intakes and exhausts fits into place along with the wheel wells, weapon bays, and flight deck interior before the upper and lower halves of the model are joined. No nose weight is required. The fit of some parts was precise enough that I had to scrape away paint from the purchase area for assemblies to mate.

Among the options are an open or closed in-flight refueling receptacle, split or closed-surface elevons, and “closed” (in-flight) or “landing” parts to use depending on whether you want to model the plane in the air or on the ground. All control surfaces attach after you have assembled the upper and lower halves of the fuselage. An optional “duck tail” for the aft center body is deflected slightly downward — I chose to use the faired one.

It’d be almost a shame to build the model “sleek” and not take advantage of the great wheel-well and bomb-bay detail Academy provides. The kit supplies three different weapons loads for its intricately-detailed bomb bays. Not specified in the instructions, I believe them to be 2,000-pound BDU-56 bombs for use with the twin rotary dispensers and 1000-pound Mk.84 low-drag bombs in vertical bomb racks. Two GBU-57/B MOP “bunker busters” complete the choice of weapons. Opening up the belly also includes a crew entry hatch and boarding ladder.

Color callouts are provided for seven paint brands, and some are even divided into a brand’s different lines, like enamel and acrylic. I used the kit-specified GSI Creos Aqueous and Vallejo Model Color acrylic paints on my sample.

The comprehensive decal sheet supplies markings for five different B-2 bombers from the 131st Bomb Wing’s 110th Bomb Squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base. The decals are super but are thin and need careful handling, as I found out. They fit the model perfectly and conform to curves. However, the extensive wing walkways include a lot of clear carrier film and have a tendency to fold under, which makes a line in the clear carrier film that is visible after straightening them out. The decal work took me a majority of the time spent on the model.

I didn’t get the nice one-piece cockpit clear part in place perfectly, a flaw not fully realized until I’d almost finished the project, so it looks like it’s less than a good fit. I thought about trying to pop the part out and re-fitting it (what could possibly go wrong?). However, common sense reminded me that my models are always the best they’re going to be about an hour before I finish them. I decided to use the “lever” method — leave ‘er alone. I confess it was all me and not the kit.

The Academy 1/144 scale USAF B-2A ”Stealth Bomber” plastic model kit builds into a fine model and took me about 24 total hours to finish. Despite its complex look with all the fine detail, the great parts fits would make it suitable for most modelers’ abilities.