Minicraft

1/144 E-8 Joint STARS

Kit Number: 14613

Reviewed by  Mike Hinderliter, IPMS# 45124

MSRP: $39.95 Website: www.minicraftmodels.com The Aircraft: "Joint STARS" stands for Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System. The JSTARS aircraft is based on a modified Boeing 707. It was designed, in a combined United States Army and Air Force program, to detect and locate enemy armor at ranges out of the normal troop forward area. Being a fairly new platform, and still under development, they showed their true worth during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The USAF flew these aircraft on 49 combat sorties, chalking up more than 500 combat hours. They were able to track mobile Iraqi forces consisting of tanks and even their Scud missiles with 100% mission effectiveness. The most noticeable feature on this aircraft is the 40ft long radome under the forward fuselage that resembles a canoe. This feature houses the side-looking APY-7 phased array antenna. The Kit The kit is molded in a light gray styrene and the parts are all packed in plastic bags, with the sprues separated by subassembly; wings, engines, radome, and landing gear all separated, making this 707 mold very versatile to make other 707 based aircraft, such as the AWACS or 707-320. It says on the box that this is new tooling, but I believe that the only thing new in this kit is the radar sprue which you can tell is cut off from their AWACs kit sprue. I was able to confirm this because I have their AWACs kit and the sprue in it also comes with the APY-7 array. Assembly and Painting There is no interior with this kit which really doesn't matter because you need to add 23 grams of weight to the nose. The fit is okay but it does have a hump between the glass and the top of the fuselage. Since the kit also had the decals for the windows I decided to just fill, sand, and paint over the cockpit to fix this. There is a problem with the shape of the front of the cockpit, which shows up when the anti-glare panel decal is applied. At the same time you will notice that the top of the fuselage looks a little flat. This is easily fixed but is quite time consuming. It needs a lot of putty and sanding. I did this process more than once to get the desired shape. The wings look like they are the same ones that come in all of their 707 kits and this is actually a good thing. They have a "through the fuselage" wing mount which is solid, forms the proper dihedral and didn't require any putty on the leading or trailing edges. This seems to be very well engineered. Next came the engines. The engine halves don't mate quite right and will need some putty. Also you will find that the engine pylons don't match the top of the engine or the bottom of the wing for that matter. One saving grace is that the pylon does cover the top seam on the engine. The under fuselage radar mount fits very well and is cleanly molded and the whole model is flash free, I would rather have no flash and clean parts to start with because I think it makes up for the sanding and extra puttying that is needed to shape this aircraft. Wheels are cleanly molded; landing gear has only a small mold line, easily cleaned up. The gear is strong, and it's easy to get all the wheels on the ground. That's saying something for any kit with more than 3 wheels.

Painting this kit is very simple because both options are painted overall light gray. I used Testers Model Master Light Ghost Gray FS 36375. The only other painting needed is on the wings and tail leading edges which are silver and the nose of the APY-7, which is a darker gray. Decals The decals are good quality but that is to be expected since they are by Cartograf. Markings include Georgia ANG and a "combat" J STARS from Desert Storm. The American Flags on the tail are correct (see AWACS review by Jim Pearsall - /reviews2/aircraft/kits/minicraft_144_e3-awacs/minicraft_144_e3-awacs.htm ). The stripes for the top of the wing are super, easy to apply and the instructions make placement easy. There is an error on the decal sheet; the serial number for 86-0416 is given as 04-0146 on the decal sheet. See Joe Baugher's serial number list at http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/usafserials.html It would be difficult for an 2004-year aircraft to participate in Desert Storm in 1991! The stripe decals for the engine turbine lines are too thick. The ones for the NATO AWACS are much better. Overall: While this kit is not a new mold, the basic 707 builds into a decent, and good looking model, but one which requires some patience and putty. Additionally, this does rate as the best 1/144 JSTARS anywhere. Recommended, it is an interesting subject.