Fighters

VF-4 Lightning

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This is the resin Club-M VF-4 Lightning kit, which I purchased in Japan several years ago. This Macross kit isn't as well cast as the YF-19 that I picked up, but still went together fairly well. The kit includes extra parts for the optional Gerwalk configuration. I chose to display the model in aircraft mode, so the extras went into the spares box. I don't particularly like the VF-4 in any mode other than aircraft, so it worked out well.

There were only two areas of poor fit on this kit...the area where the forward fuselage meets the rear fuselage, and also the cockpit/canopy joint. The fuselage joint was filled and filed extensively to get a decent fit, but the same couldn't be done with the vacuformed canopy. I had to heat the piece repeatedly and glue one side at a time and hope the pressure from stretching the clear plastic across the cockpit tub wouldn't pull the other side loose.

The pilot figure was decently case in resin, but didn't fit too well in the cockpit. I chose to replace him with a pilot from the Hasegawa pilot & weapons set. Still, this fellow lost his legs to sit properly in the cockpit. Since his legs are mostly obscured by the instrument panel, the missing feet aren't really apparent.

It was difficult to find a decent photo of this craft online to use as a painting guide, so I decided to eyeball it. The overall look is good, in my opinion. The decals included with the kit were well printed, but the macross roundels didn't fit the panel outlines in the kit. I wound up using a combination of kit decals plus some Wave option decals and some extra Hasegawa decals.