Subject: Re: air
From: "Submissions for ARC" <[email-masked]>
To: "greg kerry" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2013 01:36:10 -0700

Hi,
I just wanted to let you know your article went on ARC today.  Thanks again 
for sending it in.

Steve Bamford
ARC Air - Aircraft Resource Center
http://www.arcair.com

Live like there is no tomorrow;
Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "greg kerry" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2013 8:09 PM
Subject: air

Various Scale Chinese Bargains
by Greg Kerry

Steve Bamford will insert full sized version of photo 01.jpg here

Thought you might like to see the kind of cheap aircraft kits that Chinese 
schoolkids lavish their pocketmoney on.

This series of (fairly) modern planes is sold mostly at the kid of pavement 
stalls found outside most urban schools here - I've never seen them on sale 
in actual model shops.

Scales vary from an alleged 1/165 up to 1/115 though I wouldn't stake much 
on the accuracy of those. As you can see, the kits are sold in simple brown 
cardboard boxes with a color picture on the front. And they really are 
cheap.

I bought a bunch just to play around with them. They look quite good at 
first glance being true snap-together models. Panel lines are horribly 
overdone, trailing edges and missile fins etc are way too thick, canopies 
are molded in a surprising clear brown plastic, undercarriage parts are best 
thrown away, and decals are simply unspeakable (generic cut out and 
self-adhering).

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However, when stuck together, with the canopies glossed black they don't 
look half bad. With the RDA Gunship (actually a SF model from the movie 
Avatar) I tried filling in some of the panel lines, adding a little detail 
to the front of the engines, and using real decals. The result was good 
enough to make me try another.

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Most of the examples here are Chinese versions of Russian originals. Best of 
the bunch is the Z-10 helo which is supposed to be 1/115 but looks pretty 
close to 1/72 to me.

They're also good enough to try out some would-be SF finishes as I did with 
the all-orange Su-27.

They're not Airfix, Matchbox, or Frog - but I guess they serve a similar 
purpose.

Greg Kerry

Photos and text © by Greg Kerry

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