The Sukhoi Su-25 (NATO reporting name: “Frogfoot“) is a single-seat, twin-engine jet aircraft developed in the Soviet Union by the Sukhoi Design Bureau. It was designed to provide close air support for the Soviet Ground Forces. The first prototype made its maiden flight on 22 February 1975. After testing, the aircraft went into series production in 1978 at Tbilisi in the Soviet Republic of Georgia. Russian air and ground forces nicknamed it “Grach” (“Rook”).
Early variants included the Su-25UB two-seat trainer, the Su-25BM for target-towing, and the Su-25K for export customers. Upgraded variants developed by Sukhoi include the Su-25T and the further improved Su-25TM (also known as Su-39). In 2007, the Su-25 was the only armored fixed-wing aircraft in production, not including the Su-34 whose production had just started. It is currently in service with Russia and various other CIS states as well as export customers.
Revell 1/48 SU-25 Frogfoot
The Kit: Here is my humble build of Revell’s 1/48th SU-25 Frogfoot. As usual, it was built out-of-the-box which gives me the chance to assess a kit by its own attributes. Here is a model kit with a nice attribute already, a very nice price to decent model ratio.
The assembly starts with the cockpit which along with the ejection seat is very bare. The kit goes together without major fit problems and just the usual fuselage filling and sanding one should expect from a good fit.
- Detailed cockpit with pilot figure and two-position canopy
- A full range of armament, AA-8 air-to-air missiles, UV-16 rocket packs, a large caliber Gatling gun and AS-7 air-to-surface missiles
- Molded in light gray and clear
- Decals for Soviet Air Force Su-25A, Red 12 and Czech Air Force Su-25A, Boscomb Down, England 1992
- Includes illustrated instructions
If the wings to fuselage have a good fit, it is my MO to keep the model wingless even during the painting process. That will make any camouflage patterns easier to paint with less to mask. In this case, the wing to fuselage has a simple assembly method, yet a perfect fit.
The provided pilot figure is far from perfect. It will need some heat on the arms in order to fit it in the cockpit tub. Better to display it with a ‘so-so’ pilot figure than a bare ejection seat (IMHO).
A word of advice, the initial steps for the cockpit assembly won’t show the installation of the HUD screen. It is shown later on step 13 along with the canopy installation. By the time I reached step 13 on the instructions, I had my canopy on and ready to receive paint.
So I had to disassemble the canopy to install the HUD. I forgot to add some nose weight (duh!). Some weight was added behind the front wheel and I pretty much have a balanced kit with a decal away on the back to become a tail sitter. There is an included brace to overcome that (part#95) but of course, who wants to use it?
It was nice to have all the weapon pylons available as well as the ordnance to go with them. For a $21.99 kit, it exceeded my expectations. There’s room for scratch building and resin aftermarket parts Straight out of the box, we have a winner.
Now that this model has been finished, I’m encouraged to finish my Revell A-10 Warthog. It was left in oblivion after finding some strong warping on the fuselage bottom. More on that soon ;o)
