Sukhoi Su-33 Sea Flanker by Markus Wuellner (Academy/SOL Conversion 1/48)

Sukhoi Su-33 Sea Flanker

by Markus Wuellner

Sukhoi Su-33 "Sea Flanker"

Academy's 1/48 scale Su-27B is available online from Squadron.com

Introduction

When I saw this SOL Su-33 conversion set for the 1/48 scale Academy Su-27 at the "Flanders Modelling Contest 2000" in Antwerp/Belgium for the first time I knew that I had to build it.

I have always liked the canard equipped variants of the Flanker more than the standard non-canard ones.

The folding wings made it even more interesting.

SOL's Sea Flanker Conversion

The SOL set includes entirely new wings, stabilizer, separate flaps/slats, forward fuselage, cockpit, tailcone, exhausts, landing gear (metal), tyres (rubber), pylons, missiles, vacformed windshield and many more finely cast resin details (see the SOL box cover picture below with the thumbnails). Decals and photo etched details are also included.

Construction

Preparing the Academy kit for the conversion requires a lot of measuring, cutting and sanding.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

The mating of the SOL parts with the Academy parts was not always as easy as suggested in the SOL instruction sheet, so heavy use of putty was necessary. All in all the level of detail is quite amazing especially in the cockpit and wingfold area and the engraved panel lines on the resin parts showing the same good quality than the Academy ones.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Despite criticism of some fellow modellers about the accuracy of SOL cockpit detail sets I found it to be very accurate after comparing it to some pictures of the original cockpit layout.

One point of inaccuracy was the size of the ejection seat wich was in my eyes much too small so I replaced it with a Cutting Edge seat.

One very notable extra of this conversion set are the included 4pcs of R-77 missiles with the strange looking grid style control surfaces. I drilled out the holes in the control surfaces for a more realistic look.

For the camouflage I used X-tracolor paints in a variety of self mixed blue and grey shades. The markings are a mixture of the very nice decals supplied with the SOL kit and stencils plus red stars from Hi Decal Line.

I hope you all like my Sea Flanker.

Additional Images

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images: