1/48 Kopro Su-22 M4

by  Maciek Zywczyk

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  Polish Indepedance Day 2007 

 

My model represents Su-22 M4 used by Polish Air Forces. All planes were modified for use within NATO agreements. It carries a new camouflage, so called “NATO scheme”. I used old KOPRO kit with almost all available updates – Aires cockpit, PART etched parts, Cutting Edge exhaust nozzle and Cutting Edge exterior set. Despite this a lot of items had to be built from scratch: wheel bays, opened electronic panel, opened engine panels and lot more.  

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After fuselage halves were joint, I noticed, that cockpit was not straight. I had to correct that, that’s why fuselage was cut around cockpit, You can see this on first image. Wheel bays and landing gear legs were actually build from scratch, only some original parts were used after major modifications.

 

Planes are rarely armed on the ground, so I decided to display rockets on self made trolleys. Also a towing bar gives more live to this little display stand.

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A great reference material for Su-22 M4 was released after my fuselage was glued together. But I decided to cut out sections and build electronic bay and engine compartment. I wanted to open engine panels because they are almost always open on parked Su-22’s. One of the major problems of this kit is the thickness of wings. Unfortunately, Cutting Edge repeated this mistake in their outer wings included in exterior set. Also flaps and ailerons looked and worked different as Cutting Edge made them, so I used only slats and slat inserts that were cut off from wings – darker gray parts on the photo. Rest of wing parts are modified kit items.

Maciek

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Photos and text © by Maciek Zywczyk