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Italieri 1/48 S-3 A/B Viking |
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Reviewed by Dave Morrissette, # 33653 |
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The S–3 Viking is the standard anti-submarine carrier based plane used by the Unites States Navy since the mid –70’s. It is a large, twin-engine jet capable of patrolling for hours and dropping sonar buoys followed up by torpedoes and depth charges. When this kit came up for review, I volunteered quickly, as it great subject and there was one color scheme in particular that I wanted to do. More on that later. This Italieri release is a reissue of the old Esci Viking kit, and the molds are holding up pretty well. What is in the kit are 4 large sprues of medium soft gray plastic along with one smoke colored sprue for the cockpit windscreen and side windows. There was some flash on the landing gear door and smaller parts, but a few swipes with a sanding stick and it’s gone. The first thing that hit me out of the box was the size of this plane. It is enormous. The kit has very nice scribed panel lines and comes with three options of decals; one for VS-24 and two for VS-28. All the stenciling is included. Optional stores include four torpedoes and two Harpoon missiles. Building started in the cockpit, and here you have a decision. The kit cockpit is a little sparse with all the instrumentation and panels being represented by decals. Black Box makes a very nice cockpit in resin. Your decision here is personal in that once the dark windscreen is installed, you can see very little of the cockpit. I chose the Black Box cockpit and it fit well. Before closing up the fuselage, you need to build the tail hook assembly and install it. There are a couple of issues at this point. Don’t forget the small side windows. I did and had to go up through the bomb bays later and it isn’t much fun. Also, there is a 20g nose weight needed to keep the kit sitting level. You could also box up the intake at the base of the tail. It leaves a blank hole if you don’t. Assembly was pretty straightforward from here out. The wing to fuselage fit is good, with almost no putty required. Same for the tail, wing and engine pylons. I found only two places where things got difficult. The first was when the engine nacelles are built. The turbofan intakes are large and prominent. The paint scheme calls for silver fan blades, a white intake, and then the main fuselage color as you move out of the engine. The seams inside the engine intake are rough and need sanding and filling. This proved to be tough due to having to build the engine first. I used AB Epoxy putty and smoothed it with Vaseline to get it as smooth as possible. The second fit problem occurred when I chose to close up the bomb bays, sensors and boarding door. While these could be built open to display the interior, every picture I found showed them closed. The fit on all these doors was fair in some cases and poor in the case of the boarding door. I puttied and filled them until I got them faired in, rescribed, and it looked good. Now for the paint scheme. Here’s where I varied a bit. I wanted to do my Viking as the S-3B “Santa Tracker” from VS-35 Blue Wolves. The scheme has Santa splattered over the radome, with presents running along the fuselage. TwoBobs to the rescue with a beautiful, large decal sheet of this scheme. The instructions called for a paint scheme of FS35237 (Medium Grey) that looked wrong until I looked at some pictures a friend shot at the Cleveland Air Show. I used Testors enamels for both the grey and the black anti glare panels. A couple of coats of clear and it was time to decal. I can’t say enough about the TwoBobs Set. Poor Old Santa was in three parts, fit like a charm and snuggled down perfectly. The rest of the decals were applied and went on as well. After a flat coat and some pastel weathering, the landing gear was attached, and the masking peeled off. This is a fun kit to build. For out of the box builders, you can get a great and colorful replica of this plane. For the detailer, this is a perfect pallet to do wing folds, other detailing and all sorts of decals. I loved building this kit so much I went and bought one. I guess that’s the best recommendation can give it. I also can’t say enough about the TwoBobs- colorful, great subjects and great to apply. |
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