Italeri

[The Wooksta!]

I don't understand why people don't like it,

Ugly, fat, GREY, boring, soulless, ill-proportioned, hideously expensive, massively uncool. That enough? The "C" version is the least offensive, having bigger wings and tailplanes and thus being proportionally much more pleasing.

Wot he said.  Except C is also grey and boring.  And the MOD will cancel it because we don't have the money for it anyway. 

[kitbasher]

Can't get excited by the F-35.  Feels like Lockheed have conned the West.  Mind you, I think the MOD were wrong to buy the STOVL version - Harrier Mafia won that fight.

Typhoons, Gripens and F-18Es get my vote pending something better.

You mean F/A-XX Next Generation Air Defence for the USN to replace the superbugs ?

[kitbasher]

Can't get excited by the F-35.  Feels like Lockheed have conned the West.  Mind you, I think the MOD were wrong to buy the STOVL version - Harrier Mafia won that fight.

Typhoons, Gripens and F-18Es get my vote pending something better.

You mean F/A-XX Next Generation Air Defence for the USN to replace the superbugs ?

I mean Phantoms, Buccaneers, SLUFs, Skyraiders, Hornets (dH and MD/Boeing), Vigilantes, Sea Furies!  Proper aircraft that will confuse the enemy without all of this stealth gubbins!!  #retro

But not Tomcats.

There, I've comitted heresy.  Never been excited by the F-14.  Big, fat and expensive.

[pyro-manic]

I'll take a Tomcat over a Hornet (McDD) any day of the week!

Wot he said.  Except C is also grey and boring.  And the MOD will cancel it because we don't have the money for it anyway. 

You'll note I said "least offensive" rather than something actually positive.

Back, sort of, on topic - I noticed a few (possibly) new Italeri releases in my LHS the other day - a retro boxing (complete with Italaeri spelling) of the Ju86, and a Do-24T "upgraded" kit. Hadn't seen these two before, but it's possible I just missed them 'til now. Would quite like both actually, but don't really have the funds at the moment.

[Librarian]

Can't get excited by the F-35.  Feels like Lockheed have conned the West. 

Is that what we're going to be getting? I suspect that in a conventional war a SU-33 would eat it alive. I also suspect that in a conventional (please note conventional) war, Russia versus West, aircraft carriers (especially the Jeeps we'll end up with) will have a pretty short lifespan.

[pyro-manic]

Can't really call the QE a "Jeep" carrier. Much bigger than anything else bar the USN's nuclear monsters.

[PR19_Kit]

And bigger than any carrier we've ever had before AND bigger than anything that Russia has. Not that we're likely to be fighting them anyway, as they're only an insignificant country that no-one takes any notice of..............

[Kit's special barb against overbearing and arrogant Russian spokesmen.  ]

[NARSES2]

Back, sort of, on topic - I noticed a few (possibly) new Italeri releases in my LHS the other day - a retro boxing (complete with Italaeri spelling) of the Ju86, and a Do-24T "upgraded" kit. Hadn't seen these two before, but it's possible I just missed them 'til now. Would quite like both actually, but don't really have the funds at the moment.

The Do 24 has been spruced up by Italeri. It was always a nice kit so if it has had the same treatment as some of their other recent updates it should be nice. Don't know if the Ju 86 has been updated.

[Librarian]

Can't really call the QE a "Jeep" carrier. Much bigger than anything else bar the USN's nuclear monsters.

I'm glad of that. don't know much about this subject so I shouldn't be shooting my mouth off. I assumed . One small hanger and one very big room to fit the committees needed to run them.

[Librarian]

And bigger than any carrier we've ever had before AND bigger than anything that Russia has. Not that we're likely to be fighting them anyway, as they're only an insignificant country that no-one takes any notice of..............

[Kit's special barb against overbearing and arrogant Russian spokesmen.  ]

Out of interest, why do we need such big carriers if the aircraft are VSTOL. The Russian ships are smaller because they don't need to be bigger. Bigger ship, bigger target, or does it make any difference at all. I just feel that in the modern warfare scenario such a collossal machine would be more trouble than its worth. The Russians have had sixty odd years to come up with tactics to deal with them (if it comes to the worse). Useful against peasants standing behind trees with sharpened sticks, as well as any host of tinpot dictators, but up against a worthy foe.... .

[Thorvic]

And bigger than any carrier we've ever had before AND bigger than anything that Russia has. Not that we're likely to be fighting them anyway, as they're only an insignificant country that no-one takes any notice of..............

[Kit's special barb against overbearing and arrogant Russian spokesmen.  ]

Out of interest, why do we need such big carriers if the aircraft are VSTOL. The Russian ships are smaller because they don't need to be bigger. Bigger ship, bigger target, or does it make any difference at all. I just feel that in the modern warfare scenario such a collossal machine would be more trouble than its worth. The Russians have had sixty odd years to come up with tactics to deal with them (if it comes to the worse). Useful against peasants standing behind trees with sharpened sticks, as well as any host of tinpot dictators, but up against a worthy foe.... .

Because we replaced 3 rather cramped and limited Invincible class Helicopter Carriers with 2 STOVL carriers capable of operating upto 36 of the larger and heavier F-35B Lightning II. The size means we can operate that number of aircraft over a sustained period of operations efficiently, plus the design had to be of a size and shape to allow conversion to a CATOBAR format at a later date if required as the service life is about 50 years.

Whilst cost constraints have crippled the currently approved F-35B force from 138 to 48  which means the Carrier will only deploy with a regular embarked Squadron of 12 F-35s they can quickly and easily accomodate a 2nd and 3rd unit flown directly to the carrier if the need arose be they FAA, RAF or even USMC.

Anyway enough off topic stuff, the italeri kit is the F-35A which should be the mainstream variant used by most western forces.

[Librarian]

My apologies. Didn't notice the topic header. I'll skip over to the F-35 forum when I've had a good read up about this. Makes no sense whatsoever...it's the F-104 all over again .

[Howard of Effingham]

Ugly, fat, GREY, boring, soulless, ill-proportioned, hideously expensive, massively uncool.

Other opinions are available........... 

and doubtless one of them is the fitting of longer wings 

if i buy one i'll be doing it in a retro scheme, the choices are endless 

[Captain Canada]

It'll be interesting to do an F-35 GB, covering all the partner nations. Then wait a few years and the winnercan only be picked from the select group who actually stay with their purchase !

[Supertom]

Mike Benolkin over at Cybermodeler has a test shot of the new Italeri F-35A by the way, and it looks pretty good.  Note the similar parts breakdown to the F-22 kits:

http://cybermodeler.com/hobby/kits/it/preview_it_1331.shtml

...and a quick test build has started:

http://cybermodeler.com/hobby/builds/it/qb_it_1331.shtml

It looks good.  I'm looking forward to picking up a few.