Short Feature Article with Roger Brown
And just before we get started, here’s a look at how it all turned out…
The Su57 Felon is a Fifth generation Soviet fighter. The aircraft features stealth technology and a number of unique features not found in previous generations of fighters.
During the film ‘Top Gun: Maverick’, Tom Cruise in an F-14 Tomcat is pursued by two Soviet Su-57 Felons. So inspiration took hold and I ordered the Zvezda 1:72 kit on-line.
This is a very fine kit, with a comprehensive sheet of decals, and drawings of the excellent digital camouflage scheme.
The construction is very straightforward, with the upper and lower fuselage/wing halves on one sprue, making up most of the aircraft. The other main sprue contains the fins, tailplanes, canards and all the undercarriage parts and doors. The remaining three sprues contain the missiles, launch rails, fuel tanks, jet exhausts and the two part clear canopy along with smaller detail parts.
The cockpit tub makes up well, with a nicely detailed seat and provision for instrument panel decals. This assembly was painted up and fitted into the top half of the fuselage.
The engine intakes were constructed next and also cemented into the top half of the fuselage. The intakes are then fitted to the lower fuselage.
The instructions call for the inner parts of the jet exhausts to be fitted before the fuselage halves are cemented together, but I left them off so they could be sprayed separately.
So with the fuselage halves cemented together I added the tailplanes, but not the twin fins, as they can be fitted after all the masking, spraying and decals.
I added the canards, there is a choice of position of these items, straight or drooped.
I then cemented the main undercarriage legs to the inside of the wing, followed by the struts and the appropriate missile pylons to the wing.