1/48 Sukhoi Su 37

Gallery Article by Darius Aibara on Oct 19 2003

 

This is, I believe, a Chinese kit marketed under a brand name which escapes me (not Trumpeter).  The kit was/is relatively inexpensive (compared to the Academy Flanker kits) and on opening the box the sprue layouts and parts breakdown bore an uncanny resemblance to those of the Academy kit.  Modified engine exhausts are provided to represent (not very well) the thrust vectoring attribute of the SU 37 as well as parts for the canard foreplanes, modified fin tops and a small but nice decal sheet.

 

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The detail is softer than that of the Academy Flanker but not too bad. Parts fit is another story, however, with some serious sanding and filling (and vice versa) required, especially on the engine trunking.  The canard modifications are supposed to be butt-jointed to the fuselage chine edge, which needs to be "flattened" to accept the new parts with any degree of strength.  The same is required for the fin top mods and as with the canards some filler is needed to blend in the new parts.

Once assembled the model was primed using acrylic spray auto primer and brush painted with Humbrol enamels using pictures of the full size aircraft obtained from the internet - I may have got the red-brown colour too red (judging by other SU 37 models that I have seen).  The kit nose is fairly "prominent" (putting it mildly) and appears to be less pointed than that of the real aircraft.  If a spare nose cone comes along this kit may be getting a nose-job.

Darius Aibara

      

Photos and text © by Darius Aibara