Trumpeter 1/32 Sukhoi Su-25

By Simon Oakes

My first completed model for LSP, as well as my first 32nd scale completion! I’ve used the Trumpeter kit along with a kitchen sink type attitude to aftermarket, if I could buy it, I bought it!

First off, I hate the fact the canopy doesn’t fit right, I ended up leaving it loose so I could display the cockpit off as well as keeping the normal lines of the plane.

Without diving into accuracy comments as I’m not qualified to evaluate, the kit was very good. Fit for the major parts if built as instructed was excellent with the overall need for filling quite low, however with the amount of modification I put into it the project ended up stretching over 9 months with plenty of mistakes to slow me down. One strong negative was the kits stencil decals, there were too bright and a bit clumsy. I decided to omit the majority of these to match what references I had.

One of the hardest tasks was finding colour photos of the plane in Afghanistan which is where I wanted to model the aircraft as being. With a few references to go on, I ended up basing my weathering on ‘in service’ photos of any air force I could find.

Some of the alterations to the kit I did make were:

The fuel tanks given in the kit are the large type, PTB-1150 I believe. Most of my references showed the plane with the small PTB-800 which were made by cutting the extension pieces out of the base kit parts.

Brake lines were added to the main gear legs with Kynar wire. Brackets had to be made from stock plastic to hold these but they needed adding as on the actual aircraft these are very prominent.

The kit provides the model with the flaps and slats all deployed, quite a bit of time is needed to pose these close. I made the decision late in the build which made things harder. Same again for the air brakes, it took a considerable amount of work to model these closed without nasty gaps.

Trumpeter also provides all the underside gear doors posed in the fully opened maintenance position. In normal parked condition, only one door should be open for each bay. This proved awkward to model due to lack of mounting points.

On the underside no drain holes are provided around the engines. Brass pipe was used to simulate these using information provided by a Su-25 mechanic (Thanks Jozef!).

Item	Cost
Base Kit	£74.26
Aires Cockpit	£18.66
Master Pitot	£9.50
Eduard Masks	£5.99
Eduard Exterior PE	£18.40
Quickboost Air Intakes	£4.50
Quickboost Antennas	£4.50
Armory Wheels	£8.50
Armory Pitot (Returned!)	£11.99
	£156.30

Paints Used
Manufacturer	Code	Location
Mr. Hobby	H309 - Green	Main Camouflage
	H84 - Mahogany	Main Camouflage
	H72 - Dark Earth	Main Camouflage
	H417 - RLM78 Light Blue	Main Camouflage
	H85 - Sail Colour	Undercarriage Bays
	H307 - Light Ghost Grey	Undercarriage, Launch Rails
	H306 - Dark Ghost Grey	Weapons
Mr Paint	MRP195 - Sukhoi Cockpit Blue Grey	Cockpit
Tamiya	XF-81	Wheel Hubs
Akan	73060 - Green (Faded)	Antennas

Various Tamiya and Vallejo Model Colour used for small details and basic non-specific colours.

Modifications & Alterations

The fuel tanks given in the kit are the large type, PTB-1150 I believe. Most of my references showed the plane with the small PTB-800 which were made by cutting the extension pieces out of the base kit parts.
Brake lines were added to the main gear legs with Kynar wire. Brackets had to be made from stock plastic to hold these.
The kit provides the model with the flaps and slats all deployed, quite a bit of time is needed to pose these close. I made the decision late in the build which made things harder. Same again for the air brakes, it took a considerable amount of work to model these closed without nasty gaps.
Kit also provides all the underside gear doors posed in the fully opened maintenance position. In normal parked condition, only one door should be open for each bay. This proved awkward to model due to lack of mounting points.
On the underside no drain holes are provided around the engines. Brass pipe was used to simulate these using information provided by a Su-25 mechanic (Thanks Jozef!).

Aftermarket Reviewed

Aires Cockpit

Fantastic part from Aires. Only had to remove a small amount of the casting block from the bottom and it drop fit straight in. Some of the mounting step had to be removed but the resin blocks the hole afterwards if required.

Quickboost Air Scoops

Mainly a lazy option, the kits parts would look the same but with more work.

Quickboost Pylons

Trumpeter don’t provide the Air-to-Air pylons! Vital to complete the build, very easy to use as they’re drop fit into the kit location holes.

Quickboost Antennas

Not a bad set for the price, replaces the clunky kit parts with very fine resin. I’d use them again.

Eduard Exterior Set

Mixed bunch. A lot of this is for inside the panels I ended up closing (Air brakes, Gun bay, Gun magazine). I used all the underside panels and some of the smaller details.

Building the kit how I did, I doubt I’d use the set again.

Master Pitots

Excellent parts, they make a massive difference to the front end. Consists of both turned metal and resin parts. I’d consider these vital on a build in this scale.

Armory Pitots

Complete opposite of the Master Pitots. These were cast soft metal, had very little definition and poorly packaged. I returned them straight away.

Armory Wheels

I had a real battle with these. They aren’t pre-drilled for the kit parts which is an odd size (2.3mm from memory). I couldn’t use the front wheel in the end as with the undercarriage being white metal, the wheel was too big, which stopped me from using it.