Zvezda

1/144 Tu-160 Blackjack

Kit Number: 7002

Reviewed by  Mark Andrews, IPMS# 33206

MSRP: $25.95 PARTS: 153 Injection molded with decals Touted as the largest combat aircraft ever put into regular service, the overall shape looks similar to the American B-1B bomber with the swing wings and engines in pods under the wings. But the TU-160 Blackjack is more than one-third larger than the B-1B. A product at the height of the Cold War, it could deliver a nuclear payload literally anywhere around the globe. Plagued by financial issues, the small force flies very infrequently and training is sparse. Upgrades have given the TU-160 a very effective conventional capability. Zvezda has released a 1/144 scale kit of this very important and impressive aircraft. Molded in light gray the 153 parts are very crisp with minimal flash. Detail is finely engraved. There are many options that can be incorporated into the model with the provided parts. Open or closed bomb bays with full KH-55 cruise missile weapons, open or closed refueling probe and extended or retracted landing gear. The wings are not moveable but can be in one of three positions, full sweep, mid sweep and full extension. Parts are included for the folding wing fence. Decals are colorful and right on register. There are markings for three aircraft, Bort 3 Pavel Teran, Bort 4 Ivan Yarygin and Bort 6 Ilya Muromets. Unfortunately the instruction sheet is mostly in Russian. There are Testors Model Master paint numbers given. But a lot of the descriptions of parts and directions will take a bit of interpretation. The decal placement drawings are very basic and incomplete. Let construction begin! Construction begins with a simplified cockpit. Very little of this will be able to be seen though the tiny windows. At this scale, you could just black out the glass and it would still look good. The bottom fuselage and the upper rear fuselage go together well with minimal gaps and filling. The stinger tail has a top and bottom also and fits well. The upper forward fuselage that goes around the cockpit does not fit well at all. It is a two part affair that is too wide at the bottom edge and does not fit clean with the upper fuselage. Panel lines also do not match up. I think that Zvezda would have been better off doing a complete top and bottom fuselage. To put nose weight in, you have to make a lower bulkhead from sheet styrene. The swing wings do not function in this kit so you will have to decide what angle you want them at. There are three positions, fully extended, mid sweep and full sweep. There are two sets of parts to replicate the retractable wing fences. After attaching the upper and lower fuselage sections, I had several places all around the seams that needed quite a bit of filler and sanding. I used Squadron's white putty thinned slightly with alcohol. After all the seams were dealt with, I attached the tail surfaces and engine nacelles. Both only needed minimal filling and sanding. After masking the tiny seven windows on the cockpit, it was time to paint. The overall color is white. The landing gear, wells and bomb bays are Light Ghost Gray. The inside of the bomb bay doors all had two ejection pin marks on them that had to be filled since I was going to have the bays in the open position. Both bomb bays have a very well detailed rotary launcher and three KH-55 cruise missiles. The launchers have four parts each and go together quite well. Do follow the directions and install the missiles on the launchers before installing in the bays. Otherwise you will have difficulty in getting the missiles in the right position. After installing the bomb bay doors and the landing gear doors, it is time to give this beast a gloss clear coat. I used Testors Glosscote for my clear coat. The Decals went on with out any problems. They responded very well with Microscale Micro Set and Sol. I am not sure I would use anything stronger. The colors are opaque and on register. I did some minimal weathering with blackwash. Most of the photos I looked at the panel lines are very hard to see even on the real thing. So don't go overboard with shading. The panel lines are so fine, the best bet to highlight them would be using a pre-shading technique. The final over coat is Testors Acryl semi-gloss. This is a very well detailed kit of a much needed subject in this scale. It is a nice alternative to the 1/72 monster from Trumpeter. Some experience is needed to deal with the poor fit of some of the parts but just about anyone can make a very impressive model with this kit. One thing that was bothering me was the high parts count for a smaller kit such as this. Many of which are on the very small side. My sample was missing a few parts, two of the main wheels, the instrument panel coaming and two of the parts for the bar on the front landing gear for the anti-FOD. But otherwise a great build and highly recommended! Additional Reference: Tupolev Bombers, AIRTime Publishing, 2001-2002, David Donald

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