It all began 4 years
ago. There was not many pics and details about the J-10 that the moment, but when I saw
some blurry images on the Internet of this new beautiful Chinese fighter, I
just couldn't help telling myself, I must have one---model of coz. As you
know, only Trumpeter released it in 72 scale years ago, and I happened
to have a unbuilt 1/144 F-16XL on hand, so I decided to start from zero.
I
almost calculate the size of J-10 all by guess, once again, I don't have any
information about the real jet back in 2002, so my progress is rather slow,
that's why it took me so many years to finish it...Luckily I found one photo
showing a J-10 side by side of a J-7(MiG-21F13) then, so the basic frame is
easier to create, and I'm more lucky that by the year 2005 I put my scratch building
beside a Trumpeter J-10 kit, it just looks half size of the injection kit!
First
step the fuselage, I cut off the F-16XL wings, and make canard wings, main wings
and tail wings from plastic cards, then use card board to build belly air
intake. I kept the original F-16XL canopy for the J-10, the cockpit has one
pilot figure inside, the scale is 1/144 so I think it looks ok without
making other details.
Since
more and more data of real J-10 have been discovered in recent years, I decide
to make it a little bit different. This is a "What-if" article
actually, I added an arrestor hook to make it a shipborn version, landing
gear was modified from 1/144 F/A-18C. IRST, LANTIRN like system and wing
tip missile rail are also my personal taste :)
For
the weapon load out, the PL-8/SD-10 missiles are also scratch build, antiship
missile is based on the ARII 1/144 weapon set, drop tank was taken from a 1/144 MiG-29 kit. I
buried pegs on the missiles and drop tank, so no glue was needed to put them
under the wings. Also, the landing gear structures are also interchangeable, to
simulate flying and station status. Canard is movable.
Tamiya
and Gunze spray cans were used, and I drew some lines by pencil, it's too hard
for me to scribe so many lines by knife on such a little plane kit with complex
curved body. And I managed to stick ARII 1/144 weapon set stencil on it,
but the decals just keep falling from where they should be, so I give up, keep
the fuselage blank until I got custom Low-vis Chinese Navy decal from my friend
Garfield maybe next year...
Click on
images below to see larger images
The most painful
step to me is dealing with putty over the fuselage, especially wing root. Cos I
don't have modern plastic kits modeling technics but only experience making wood
kits decade ago. Time and time again I want to quit after failing to set putty
correctly, with countless try and support from my family and friends, the
project survived.
Great thanks to all
those helped me, and Happy birthday China!
Thanks
for watching my poor technics of building and shooting.
newca
Click on
images below to see larger images
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