Full Review

Kinetic

AMX Single Seat Fighter

1:48 scale

with Chris McDowell

(May 2018)

Copyright www.scalemodellingnow.com 2018

The AMX International AMX is a ground-attack aircraft for battlefield interdiction, close air support and reconnaissance missions. As a result of a memorandum between Italy and Brazil for the type’s joint development in 1981, AMX International, an Italian-Brazilian joint venture, was formed to develop, manufacture, and market

the aircraft. The AMX is designated A-11 Ghibli by the Italian Air Force and A-1 by the Brazilian Air Force. The AMX is capable of operating at high subsonic speed and low altitude, by day or night, and if necessary, from bases with poorly equipped or damaged runways. It possesses a low infrared (IR) signature and a reduced radar-equivalent cross-section to help prevent detection, while low vulnerability of structure and systems aid survivability and a compliment of integrated electronic countermeasures (ECM), air-to-air missiles and nose-mounted guns provide self-defence capabilities. (Source: Wikipedia)

A note from Geoff… As we have the completed photos of Chris’s excellent build I want to show you a couple of these now so you can see how well it all turned out - nice work Chris!

Over to you Chris…

Kinetic released their AMX kit in 2015 and it is everything I’ve come to expect from a Kinetic release. The kit consists of over a 180 parts moulded in a light grey plastic, 15 etched metal parts on a small fret, and 13 clear parts, with markings for 3 aircraft.

The open-top box looks incredibly full on first opening it until you realise you don’t need quite a bit of it to build the single seat version, so there will be plenty left over for the spares box. At the time of writing, Kinetic have since released a two-seat trainer version that uses a lot of the same sprues, plus some of the extra sprues not needed for the single seat version (although I suspect you’ll still be left with a lot of extra parts with whatever kit you build).

The plastic looks well moulded with the crisp details you would expect from a new kit. Although on closer inspection you will notice that the mould seam lines can be a bit heavy at times, and there is a little flash here and there around most parts. The long and the short of it is, every part removed from the sprues required to be cleaned up, and every mating surface needed to be dry-fitted to ensure there was a good fit. I find Kinetic plastic can be a little soft, so be careful when cleaning up any of the parts.

On with construction… Construction begins as usual with the cockpit, and Kinetic have done a very nice job of providing a busy looking and detailed office space. There is plenty of raised detail on the side consoles and instrument panel, and with some careful painting it is possible to produce a very nicely detailed cockpit. I would mention that the only improvement Kinetic could make to the cockpit is to provide some instrument decals. The detail is nicely raised and can be carefully painted to produce a nice effect, but the option to use decal instruments would have been nice.

The ejector seat is definitely worth mentioning as well. It is made up of five different plastic parts with photo etch seat belts which help greatly with the overall look of the finished seat.

Once everything had been carefully painted using various Vallejo model color paints and AK Interactive’s light Ghost Grey (2057), a light coat of matt varnish was used to kill off any shine from the paints. I did add some Micro Krystal Klear to the instrument dials using a cocktail stick to simulate the glass before assembling the different parts of the cockpit.

The fuselage has been designed that the cockpit and nose section is a separate sub assembly. This allows Kinetic to use the same sprues for different versions that

require a different nose or a larger cockpit for an additional seat, without having to mould a separate fuselage for each one. All that is required is a different cockpit/nose section and you’re good to go for several different variants. This obviously is a cheaper way for the manufacturer to design and mould the kits, but unfortunately for the modeller, it means a little more work to ensure a smooth transition between the forward and aft fuselage sections.

Before closing up the forward sub-assembly, the nose wheel well has to be included along with the finished cockpit. Weights to ensure the model sits correctly when it has been completed have also to be included. The instructions don’t tell you how much weight to add, but there is plenty of room to add more lead weight than is required. I used a combination of deluxe materials liquid gravity for the smaller spaces, and larger individual weights just in front and below the cockpit tub. I used a touch of superglue to hold all of the weights in pace.

Main fuselage assembly… Turning to the main fuselage assembly the two air intakes, engine exhausts and rear wheel wells have to be assembled and painted before the fuselage halves can be closed up. Everything fitted pretty well although

I’m not keen on having to fit the landing gear legs so early in the build. Only because there’s a good chance I’ll break them off, and it can make masking the wheel well off before painting a bit more complicated. The legs could potentially be inserted afterwards, but it looked to be a very fiddly job when I was dry fitting them, so I decided to stick with the instructions and fit them now.

Once the two halves were together I did have to use a little filler along the main seam. Once the filler had dried it was sanded smooth and the lost panel lines and rivet detail was added back onto the model surface. There are several inserts and antennae to be fitted around the fuselage. There are different ones to choose from depending on which version of the kit you’re building, so be sure to study the instructions and reference materiel carefully before committing to glue.

Wing assemblies… With the fuselage set to the side for the time being, the wing assemblies were up next. Kinetic have designed the wings so that the leading edge of the wings, and the trailing edge flaps can be set in either the raised or the lowered position. This adds a lot more interest to the look of the finished model and is a welcome addition. I of course decided to model mine with all of the flaps in the lowered position. So the correct parts were removed from the sprues, cleaned up and assembled as per the instructions. I did leave both sets of flaps unattached at this stage as it would greatly help with the painting stage later.

Once the glue had dried, the wings were then secured to the fuselage leaving only the smallest of gaps. This was filled with some Mr Surfacer 500 and the excess was removed with a cotton bud soaked in Mr Hobby’s lacquer thinner. Although the rear horizontal stabilisers were also assembled at this stage, I left these unattached for the time being to assist with the painting stage later.

Masking up… So with the main assembly completed I just had to add the front section of the canopy before masking up the cockpit opening and the two wheel wells. There was no aftermarket canopy masks available when I built this kit, so the canopy had to be masked the old fashioned way. There’s nothing complicated about it, but the use of pre-cut masks certainly helps to speed things up. I did use a masking sheet by a company called Maketar that is designed for this very purpose. It’s filled with different angled and curved masking strips that if you aren’t able to get a specific pre-cut mask for you project, will definitely make masking a canopy a lot easier.

I used Mr Surfacer 1000 thinned with their self levelling lacquer thinner as a primer. This doesn’t take long to dry and gives a perfect base to paint on. Any seams, or missing panel lines and rivet details are easily seen and taken care of before carrying on. One of the biggest advantages of using the Mr Surfacer as a primer is if you’ve had to address a seam line for example, and you’ve sanded away the primer, it is so easy to seamlessly airbrush it back in again before continuing on with the build.

When looking at reference photographs of the AMX, I noticed that on a lot of examples there was a difference in the paint finish at the rear of the fuselage. Obviously caused by a different metal being used in the construction of the aircraft in this area, and the effects on that from the heat of the jet exhaust. The paint has thinned enough to reveal a hint of the metal underneath. This was something I wanted to try and capture on my model, so I began by masking off the rear section of the fuselage and airbrushed this with a light coat of Alclad 2 gloss black primer.

Once this had dried, I used Alclad 2’s Aluminum to give a good metal base to work with. So it was time to start airbrushing the main airframe and Tamiya’s Sky grey XF-19 was used as the overall base colour. I avoided spraying a blanket coat of paint over the rear fuselage, but instead sprayed a light coat along the rivet lines. Once this had dried, an even mix of XF-19 and XF-2 (flat white) was used to create some

highlights. This was sprayed in a random fashion within each panel creating a sort of mottled or marble look. Again this mix was used sparingly around the metal section of the fuselage.

Tamiya’s neutral grey XF-53 Was used on the panel lines to create further depth to the paint finish. Finally a very thin mix of the original colour was used to blend all of the shades together. Unfortunately I went a bit heavy with this final coat and lost a bit more of the colour depth than I would have wanted. We live and learn though, and next time I’ll take more care with this final coat.

Once the main camouflage had dried, I used the Kinetic colour guide and my own references to mask off the areas of the airframe that needed to be airbrushed black and white. I used both Tamiya’s XF-1 and XF-2 to build up the colours slowly

to ensure I got good coverage and that the paint didn’t pool and bleed under the masks. Once the paint had dried, the masks were removed, and the model was given a couple of light coats of Alclad II’s Aqua gloss in preparation for decaling. I have to say that if you haven’t tried the Aqua gloss before, do yourself a favour and get some. It leaves a beautifully glossy surface, and can be polished further with a soft cloth.

Another benefit of the Aqua gloss is that AK interactive, Wilder, or Ammo products can be used directly on top of it without fear of damaging the surface, and this is due to it being water based rather than oil or lacquer. Decals… At first glance there didn’t seem

to be a great deal of stencils or markings on the aircraft, but I found out rather quickly that wasn’t to be the case. Kinetic have suppled quite a substantial decal sheet that has been beautifully printed by Cartograf. As expected with Cartograf

decals, they settled over the surface perfectly with the aid of some Micro Sol decal

solution. Yet again though Kinetics instructions prove themselves to be next to useless, as some decals are numbered wrong or aren’t mentioned at all. The missiles being a perfect example, there is no mention of the decal placements for them at all, and I had to rely on my own research to apply them correctly.

And some weathering… Once the decals had dried, the surface of the model was lightly cleaned with a damp clean cloth to remove any excess decal solution. Another coat of Aqua gloss was used to seal in the decals before moving onto a panel line wash. For this I used AK Interactives Paneliner for blue and grey (2072). The solution was brushed into the panels letting capillary action do most of the work. Once this was dry to the touch I used some clean dry cotton buds to remove the excess wash. Any stubborn stains were removed with a brush dampened with AK Interactives odorless thinners.

I used a highly thinned mix of Tamiya’s flat black (XF-1) and red brown (XF-64) to create some streaking on the lower surface. The same mix was used to highlight a few of the panel lines around the airframe to add some general dirt and grime. Once this had dried I added most of the smaller parts that I had left off to aid in the painting process, or in fear I’d break them off during the build. This was followed by a coat of Mr Hobby’s matt clear varnish thinned with their own acrylic thinner.

Once the matt varnish had dried I used AK Interactive streaking grime around specific areas of the model. I concentrated more on the lower surface to represent leaking fluids and general stains. It’s easier to get the most out of this product when used on a matt surface as the oil has a better chance of sticking to the surface rather than had it been applied on a glossy surface. I left this to dry for a while before using a brush dampened with ordless thinners to create streaks in the direction of the airflow. I finished the last of the weathering off with Humbrol’s smoke pigment (AV0004) around the engine exhaust, and around the nose mounted machine gun. Finally the canopy masks were removed and the canopy was fixed in position with some Micro Krystal Klear canopy glue.

To sum up… In conclusion I’m quite happy with how the finished model turned out. The few small issues that I’m left with were more of my own making, rather than any problems with the kit. The AMX is not a subject choice that you see very often, so it’s definitely a welcome addition to the collection. In fact I think the only other 1:48 scale kit available is from HobbyBoss, which I believe was released earlier this year. Unfortunately I haven’t seen or built the HobbyBoss kit so I can’t do a side by side comparison of the two kits.

As far as the Kinetic kit goes though. The moulding is generally very good, although I did find the details were a little soft in some places. I found the engineering on the kit to be quite good, and for the majority of the build the parts fitted perfectly. On other occasions though, it was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, literally! Nothing a little basic modelling skills couldn’t take care of, but a definite reminder to dry fit everything before committing anything to glue. This in general is good advice regardless of the kit manufacturer, but with Kinetic, it’s a definite must!

My biggest complaint about this release isn’t one that is specific to this kit, but one that is generic for all of their releases (certainly any of the ones I’ve built or heard of). The Kinetic instructions are just not up to scratch. Not only do I find them a little confusing at times, especially when I’m trying to identify which parts to use for the particular variant I’m trying to build, as there are several differences between them. The colour call-outs aren’t that great. There were a few parts that were labeled wrong, or the picture of the part wasn’t on the instructions at all. Decal placements are not mentioned for any of the weapons or drop tanks, and again some of the decals had the numbers identified wrongly. On their own, none of these issues are deal breakers as I was able to figure them out pretty quickly, but together they make up for a poorly put together instruction booklet.

I would definitely recommend this kit to anyone that had a few builds under their belt, but in my opinion anyone new to the hobby could potentially struggle with this release or in fact any of Kinetics releases.

Chris McD.

SMN Quick summary Star rating out of 5

Build enjoyment ****Quality of moulding ****Level of detail ****Accuracy ****Instructions **Decals *****Subject choice ****Overall ****