1/48 Kopro Su-22M4 Fitter  

by Malcolm Reid

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There’s something I just love about Russian tactical aircraft. Is it the agricultural simplicity and unconventional lines or is it the beautiful 4 tone tac camo they use ? I think it’s both. Having just completed the Monogram Su-25, I decided it was time to make a replica of its predecessor. I sourced a Kopro Su-22 from Linden Hill. This arrived in the post packaged in a bag complete with decal sheet and instructions. 
The surface detail is recessed but quite crude. The cockpit detail is very poor. I therefore decide to go the whole hog :

  • Neomega Cockpit set added. This is a vast improvement over the kit parts. The nose undercarriage bay is also provided with the Neomega set and is also much better than the kit part.

  • Cutting Edge detail set which includes resin outer wings with separate slats and flaps, inboard landing flaps, chaff and flare dispensers, separate rudder (which I did not use) and open air brakes (the housings are beautifully detailed)

  • Cutting Edge jet pipe – an absolute must as this is a big opening to fill – the corrugations inside the afterburner are delicately represented.

  • I added some ribbing to simulate structure inside the inner wing section as this is quite open with the outer wing sections in the forward position.

  • Opened the air intake bypass doors on the forward fuselage – these are typically open when the aircraft is on the ground.

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The assembly of the kit was a bit of a nightmare as very few parts fit correctly and panel lines on the two fuselage halves didn’t line up.
Wing to fuselage fit was good on the one side but disgusting on the other. My old friend Milliput came into good use. The wing pylons had to be sculptured to fit the leading edge of the wing and (for the outboard pylons) to line up with the wing fences – again lots of Milliput. In positioning the chaff and flare dispensers along the upper fuselage, I only realised too late (after flipping through some books) that the forward pair are staggered whereas I had fitted them adjacent to each other.

I used XtraColour gloss paints airbrushed as follows – upper surface 4-tone camo using X618 green, X616 dark green (+20% white), X617 tan (+1-% white), X619 dark brown (+30% white), undersides X626 light blue. 

There are a myriad of various coloured panels and bits on this aircraft – natural metal rear underside, green antennae panels on the fin tip, fuselage spine, wing leading edges and doppler under the nose, grey antenna on fin bullet fairing, grey fin leading edge, natural metal wing and flap panels, steel gun blast panels etc. I had read somewhere with some trepidation that the kit decals were very poor – these are printed
by Propagteam – as I was going to paint this aircraft in Soviet colours, I tried one of the Czech insignia on my trusty decal testbed (an old Hasegawa F-16 painted gloss light grey) – to my surprise this settled down beautifully with Microsol. I attacked the Su-22 decaling with enthusiasm and was not disappointed. Weathering was done using various pastel colours and silver pencil. A final coat of XtraColour matt varnish toned everything down. Fiddly bits and weapons were added. 
Reference material was care of several books on Warsaw Pact aircraft including  Squadron Signal’s Su-22 In Action. There are also some fantastic colour photos on
airliners.net (this is a great colour photo reference web site).

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Although being quite a crude kit, the finished product was well worth the effort – this is a very unique looking aircraft and doesn’t really look like it should fly with those odd little outboard swing wings and proliferation of wing fences.
I’ve included a picture of the Su-22 with the similar scale Monogram Su-25 to give an idea of the different configurations of the aircraft. 

Malcolm

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Photos and text © by Malcolm Reid