What the postie brought me today

Jules, The Matchbox Hawk 200 isn't even close to the shape of the real thing - I wanted to do one or three too. I did start on designing a conversion for the 200 from the Italeri, but I haven't finished it.... surprise, surprise. Scale Aircraft Modelling published some plans a while back that look pretty good compared to pics of the real thing - if you want I'll look them out and give you the issue details, or send me your snail address and I'll copy them and post to you.

RobG

Stream / Strim (or whatever Western approximation of the Cyrillic name is appropiate).

Cheers,

Andre

It's Strim (or Streem, or Stream for a phonetic translation, written CTPNM in cyrillic) and despite the shortcomings of short-run kits (some flash, thicker plastic and so-so fit) it's much better than the Dragon kit (very nice engraved panel lines and rivets and much more accurate).

About the Dragon kit, there are 2 of them: the Su-24 Fencer C (with short nose) and the Su-24M Fencer D (longer nose with refuelling probe). I wouldn't bother too much about accuracy: to have an accurate model you'd have to almost rebuild it (so better buy the Strim kit). Anyway it looks like a Fencer (just shorten the undercarriage legs, they are 2-3 mm too long)

Hope this helps.

Thanks Uri, i sold my Dragon kits last year when i heard about the better one, but picked up one from a seller where i got a load of other kits for about 5bucks.

Seems Hannants are out of stock of the Stream kit at present, not cheap tho

Yes, but also the Dragon Fencer D wasn't so cheap. The Fencer C instead was also boxed by Italeri and much cheaper...

Btw, if you are able to get the Strim kit, you can use some parts from the Dragon one (the Strim doesn't have any weapon nor drop tanks and the decals, at least in my sample, have the white a bit out of register).

good idea thanks