It took me ages to finally find a copy of the Warrior Model 1/72 scale vacu-formed/resin kit of a NanChang Q-5 on ebay. This one came to me from a guy in Poland.
The Q-5 is a close air support/ground attacker aircraft, currently deployed by both, PLAAF (Chinese Air Force) and the PLA Navy.
This one is my first vacu-formed kit that I am ever going to assemble. That means its going to be interesting... :huh:
If you look at the box contents, you'll see that the main fuselage and wings are vacu-formed white plastic, while weapons, cockpit and parts of the landing gear are either resin cast or white metal. The metal parts I won't need for the most part since I am going to assemble the kit "in flight" on a flight stand. I am also planning on exchanging the resin cast FAB-250 bombs with plastic ones from Dragon Models' Soviet Aircraft payload kits in 1/72 scale. I might also use my Dream Model chinese LGBs to put them under the wings instead of the 57mm rocket pods. The modern Q-5 can carry up to two of them.
Check out the pics:
Contents: decals, instructions, painting guides, resin payload and detail parts, white metal landing gear etc..
Box: includes one kit, several decals for both, PLAAF and Pakistani Air Force
Following a few guides on the internet on modelling vacu-form kits, the first steps I took was using a black marker and draw it around the parts in an 45° angle. I tried to mark 50% of both, the actual parts and the styrene sheet around it.
I then used scissors and hobby knife to cut out the parts. I tried not to cut too close to the parts before they have been freed of the styrene sheet left overs around it. Next step will be cutting them out very closely using my hobby knife and then the sanding process will kick off.
