Revell

1/48 F/A-18E Super Hornet

Kit Number 5519

Reviewed By Dave Morrissette, #33653

The Revell F/A-18E has arrived.  The Super Bug has been on many modelers’ radar for a long time as one that needed to be made into a kit, and Revell has delivered.  Let’s take a look at the kit and what you get in it.

The kit sprues are molded in gray and there is a little flash on the moldings.  The clear parts are beautiful, and include the canopy and windscreen as well as the HUD and one of the front landing gear doors (more on that later).  Decals are included for two planes with full stencils.  Right up front I chose the Tophatters version, with its black tails and wild markings.  Armament sprues include AIM-120C, AIM-9X, Mk.83 and GBU-31 JDAM plus a nice drop tank.  There are options for the boarding ladder also.  A thorough decal sheet is also included.

Construction starts with the cockpit which is nice, including a separate throttle quadrant.  One note, the styrene used in the kit is soft and sands easily so beware overly aggressive sanding.  Seat details are good and there are decal options for the instrument panel for active or inactive modes.  You also have the option to paint the instrument panel if that’s your preference.  Finished, the cockpit looks good and for those wanting more detail, I am sure resin sets are to follow.  Once finished, it is attached to the bottom fuselage and these are set aside for construction of the intakes.

The large mouth intakes are one of the characteristic looks of the Super Bug.  In the kit, each intake contains full trunking back to the engine faces and is made from 5 parts.  The two main parts of the ducts are glued and the insides have to be sanded to get a smooth surface.  I used several files and sandpaper glued to an old paintbrush handle.  Once finished, the engine face is glued on and the part is attached to a panel that makes up the side of the fuselage.  The contact point in the lower corner of the intake where they glue together is a small surface, and mine popped loose during installation into the fuselage.  To install the ducts in the fuselage, you twist them in and glue in place.  Fit was OK after a half dozen sanding tweaks but it did require putty on the bottom to get it fair in decently.  In the end, I clamped the two intakes tight to each other to produce a tight joint with the bottom half of the fuselage.

Just before the fuselage top and bottom are joined, Revell has come up with something all modern jets like this should have- a stabilizer joiner! This piece makes sure both stabilizers are at the same angle and act as one piece.  Makes life simple.  I had no issues joining the fuselage together and only need a little putty at the rear of the plane.

Next up was the nose section that is meant to slide over the front.  Revell molded the nose in four sections, left, right, top and bottom.  The fit on the bottom and sides is fair and putty is needed on all seams.  Try as I might, I could not get the top to fit well and ended up with several putty and sand sessions to get it decent.  When attaching the nose to the fuselage, trial and error is best to minimize fit issues.  I used several clamps and slow gluing and the bottom fit was fair.  The top fit required much more fitting and putty.  Hindsight says that I should have found a better way to clamp the upper fuselage in place.

The rest of construction is straightforward with the small pieces and parts.  The outer wing sections are separate but no provision is made to fold them.  Fit is OK and I am sure someone will issue a wing fold set soon.  Once the main fuselage is together and the small pieces added, the paint can go on and while drying the armament and lading gear can be built.  No surprises here.  Decals went on very well and settled down with the Microscale system.

To finish off the all the parts were attached and the canopy and wind screen last.  This is a mistake.  The front windscreen should have been added prior to painting- it doesn’t fit tightly and requires putty.  I added mine and then used white glue to fill the seam and repainted.  Better but still not as good as I like to see.  The main canopy is excellent but does have the seam to be polished out due to the bubble shape of the real thing.  No problem there.

All in all, this is a nice kit but not for beginners.  The tricky nose and intake fit require some experience to get to fit.  It makes a nice addition to the collection and I included a picture next to an F-18C kit to show the size difference.  I want to thank Ed Sexton and Revell Monogram for the review kit.

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