In-box Review of the Academy 1/27 A-37B Dragonfly

 

Unboxing review of:

- Academy 1/72 A-37B Dragonfly -

a peek inside the box.

    It's time for another review. This time it's the A-37B Dragonfly, a light attack and counter-insurgency aircraft used extensively in the Vietnam war as well as other conflicts. Keep on reading if you want to know if this interesting little war bird would be a good addition to your collection.

Box art

front box art.

    In typical Academy fashion, the box art features a beautiful hand drawing of two Dragonflies, flying over presumably the mountains of Vietnam dropping bombs and possibly napalm onto the forest below. At the bottom left we have the name of the subject, and at the bottom right is the Academy logo.

first long edge.

    On one of the long edges we have once again have the name of the aircraft, with a few photos of a completed A-37B Dragonfly, giving you a pretty good idea of what could be achieved with this kit.

other long edge.

    On the opposite long edge we have another picture of a completed Dragonfly, next to that we have some warnings telling us that the kit contains small parts written in several languages. Here we are also told that the kit is not suitable for modelers under 14 years of age. And we also have a copyright date of 2019. But as we've learned so far with Academy kits, this might not necessarily be the tooling date.

one of the short edges.

    On the first short edge we're looking at we have the Academy logo, an item number of 12461 in case you plan to also purchase this kit. A cropped in rendition of the box art, the name of the aircraft, some blurb talking about what to expect to find inside and the scale of the model.

other short edge.

    The other short edge features pretty much the same things as on the opposite side just in a different orientation. I said it before and I'll say it again. but I think this space is misused, this could be used for perhaps more shots of a finished model. But it is what it is. The back of the box is blank, again a missed opportunity in my mind.

Contents of the box

inside the box.

    Opening up the box we are greeted by the usual Academy packaging. A return policy warning, with the bag of sprues underneath, and the rest of the documentation and decals below that.

box content spread out.

    This is everything that comes inside the box, and there's quite a bit. Starting from the top left and going clockwise we have; the decal sheet, a health and safety warning leaflet, the return policy, our bag of sprues, painting instructions leaflet interestingly as a separate piece of paper, the build instructions and a hints and tips leaflet.

Documentation

build instructions cover.

    I've already covered the paperwork found inside an Academy box so I'm going to skip looking at the return policy, hints & tips and health & safety leaflets. But if you want to know what they are about, you can read about them here and here. So we'll jump straight to the paperwork that are specific to this kit. 

    Starting with the front of the instruction leaflet that features a black and white rendition of the Dragonfly with some information of the real life aircraft's operational use. These are always interesting to read as they sometimes obscure facts or technical details of the real vehicle you are building. 😁

instruction leaflet opened up.

    With the instruction leaflet opened up we have some quick hints & tips at the top left, a series of build symbols you will encounter throughout the build. Paint callouts and the building steps.

opposite side of instruction leaflet.

    On the other side we have a few more build steps, a very handy loadout diagram, sprue maps, and the cover which we've already seen.

quick hints & tips.

    Starting from the top, we have some quick hints & tips in case you decided to skip the additional illustrated leaflet. This won't necessarily mean people won't skip these either, but it's nice to have them here as well. Personally, I would highly recommend you read through these as they can contain important instructions younger modelers or those just starting out might not know. I will eventually also cover some of these hints & tips here on the blog in the future in a bit more detail than what these small paragraphs that come with these kits can offer, so keep an eye out for that.

cockpit assembly.

    The build starts off like most aircraft kits, in the cockpit. We first need to assemble the ejector seat mechanism and rails which come in two parts. Then we need to attach the seat to this and w need to make two of these. We are also told that the color of the headrest depends on the variant we are building. This kit contains painting instructions for a USAF and a ROKAF version. We then need to add the seat subassemblies to the cockpit tub as well as the control sticks for the pilot and copilot.

cockpit to fuselage assembly.

    We then need to add the instrument panel to the antiglare shield, we are also told to drill some holes in the top of the fuselage. The model also requires 5g of weight inside the nose to prevent it from becoming a tail sitter. Lastly we need to sandwich the fuselage halves, cockpit tub and glare shild together to complete the fuselage assembly.

wing to fuselage assembly.

    We then move on to assembling the wings, with the lower wing surfaces requiring some drilling. Then we need to install the gunsight on the pilot's side of the cockpit.

refueling probe, avionics package and horizontal stabilizer assembly.

    Next we need to add the in-air refueling probe (only used on the USAF version) to the front of the aircraft as well as a small probe just to the right of the refueling probe. Then we add a small hump behind the cockpit, this was used to make a bit more space for mission critical avionics, and then we add the horizontal stabilizers to the tail of the Dragonfly.

antenna, lights and blast shield assembly.

    Then we need to install a strobe light as well as a few antennas and probes to the top of the aircraft behind the cockpit. And we also have to attach the blast shields aft of the wing-roots. At the top right is a diagram showing the correct positioning of the various antennas and light.

nose gear, lights and probe assembly - bottom.

    We then flip the aircraft upside down and install the nose wheel and gear-bay doors, as well as a host of antennas and another strobe light to the bottom of the aircraft.

main landing gear assembly.

    In the next step we assemble the right landing gear and doors, we also install some lights to the aft of the wing underside (I'm not entirely sure what light D5 is). This will then all need to be mirrored on the other side.

hardpoint and wingtip fuel tank assembly.

    Next we need to add the hardpoints for the different loadouts that come with this model and the wingtip fuel tanks which comes in two parts. We also have a diagram provided for the correct positioning of the landing gear. This too will need to be mirrored on the left side.

canopy assembly - open configuration.

    In the next step we need to assemble the cockpit canopy, this is for the opened canopy configuration. We first add the front canopy section, then we add the cockpit frame and actuator to the rear half of the canopy which we then insert in it's designated location.

canopy assembly - closed configuration.

    We also get the possibility to display this aircraft with a closed cockpit. This process is a bit simpler as we only need to attach the actuator to the aft canopy half. Do note that you need to do some "surgery" on the actuator and remove quite a bit of it before you can attach it to the cockpit.

drop-tank and SUU-14A dispenser assembly.

    We then start working on the loadout, starting with the fuel tanks which come in two halves and an extra fin. We need to make 4 of these. And the SUU-14A dispenser which comes in 3 parts and we need to make 2 of these.

LAU-3 rocket pod and Mk.82 GP bomb assembly.

    Next we install the LAU-3 rocket pods which comes in several parts, and we have the option to display these with the covers on or off. We are also given a small diagram showing the correct positioning of the rocket tubes. The Mk.82 general purpose bombs come in one piece so we are only given painting instructions. We need 4 of each of these.

weapon loadout diagram.

    Then we have a really lovely touch. A nice little weapon loadout diagram for the Dragonfly. This shows how and where the different types of armament and fuel tanks were installed on the aircraft. It's really useful when you want to mix and match ordinances. The Dragonfly would often feature asymmetric loadouts so feel free to go crazy. But keep an eye on the diagram as the pilons on the aircraft were designed to carry different weights.

sprue A map.

sprue B map.

sprue C & D maps.

    Lastly we have the sprue maps to help you quickly identify where the different components are located on the sprues.

USAF painting guide.

    Then we have the painting guides. First is for the USAF variant. Specifically for the 8th Special Operations Squadron 14th Special Operations Wing operating from Bien Hoa Air base, Vietnam in 1970. The aircraft features a 4 tone camo pattern and whilst the instructions try to make it kind of easy to tell where the different colors should go, it's not ideal to have them printed in black and white. With the two lighter colors being impossible to distinguish at a glance.

ROKAF painting guide.

    The second paint scheme included is for a South Korean operated aircraft from the 8th Fighter Wing flown in 1996. This also features a 4 tone scheme, very similar to the USAF one and once again the black and white guide will make it quite difficult to make out where the different colors go at a glance.

Decal sheet

decal sheet inside protective film.

    The decals are a major letdown of this kit. If we look at the keying cross at the top, we can see that it is severely out of register. And just a quick glance at the various markings and stencils reveal that no care was given when printing the decals. Not only are the colors out of register, but there are many printing errors everywhere. How this passed QC is beyond me.

decal sheet closeup.

    With the sheet out of it's protective film let's take a closer look at the decals. And the story gets worse. Aside from the blurry image 😅, the printing is really not good. Whilst some of the text is legible, any marking or stencil that uses more than one color is severely misaligned. 

stencil and markings closeup.

    And this continues throughout the sheet. I'm not expecting Cartograf quality, but this is laughably bad.

more markings closeup.

stencils and squadron markings closeup.

    And the story doesn't end. This is really disappointing 😒. Most of these decals are pretty much unusable.

Republic of Korea Airforce roundels and access panel signage closeup.

    The ROKAF roundels aren't any better, the colors are misaligned with ugly blotches on one of the roundels. More ink blotches on the access panel linings and texts.

tail numbers closeup.

    The tail numbers seem quite decent though. Most of the single color decals do.

squadron insignias and stencils.

 

USAF roundels.

stencils and fuselage numbers.

    There's really no excuse for shipping out something in this state. I'm not sure what happened at the Academy factory the day these decals were printed. But someone was clearly sleeping on the job. And QC apparently somehow considered the quality of the printing good enough to get them out the door. I'm seriously considering getting aftermarket decals, because many of the decals are simply just to horribly printed to go on the model. I should note, that this might just be a problem with my copy of the kit. Yours might be perfectly fine. But it is something to keep in mind if you decide purchasing this kit.

The plastic

bag of sprues.

    Here we have the bag that contains the sprues with all of our parts for the A-37B. I opened the bag when the kit arrived in the mail, This was the first Academy kit I ever purchased and was very interested in the quality  of the molding. But it's getting close to one and a half year since I've last seen these sprues so I've forgotten what the parts look like by the time I started this review 😉. So this is till going to be a first impressions review.

sprues out of the bag.

    Inside the bag are three sprues molded in gray plastic, and a small sprue of clear plastic which is packaged separately. That's really nice as it protects the transparencies from damage.

sprue A overview.

    The first sprue contains the two fuselage halves, refueling probe, cockpit components, some antennas and the wingtip fuel tanks.

in-air refueling probe.

    The refueling probe looks to be molded nicely, with a decent amount of detail. There seems to be a bit of flash but nothing upsetting.

cockpit tub.

    The detail of the cockpit tub is rather crude and simplified which is a shame, Because of the large canopy, you will be able to see inside quite well and the absence of detail will be visible both with a closed or open canopy. Skilled modelers might want to consider doing some scratch building to add more detail. But otherwise it's not too bad.

anti-glare shield and unused part.

    Next we have a part that isn't used in this build, I'm not sure what it is supposed to be but it seems to have some rivet detail. If you have any idea what this might be, do let me know in the comments. Below this is the anti-glare shield with the locating guides for the gunsight. There's little other detail here, but I'm quite certain that's accurate for this type of aircraft.

ejector mechanism components.

    Then we have the ejector mechanism and rails molded with quite a bit of detail. There are some visible hydraulic lines and cables, making it perfect for adding extra detail when painting and weathering.

control columns and antennas.

    The control columns are molded nicely as well with the grip and shroud beautifully depicted. Next to these are a couple of antennas which aren't used for either of the versions of the aircraft in the kit. The unused parts suggests that there is a kit for another variant of the A-37B Dragonfly.

antennas and pitot probe.

    Then we have some more antennas and a pitot probe. These are also nicely molded. Nothing to complain about here.

right fuselage half.

    The right fuselage presents some nice panel lines and air-vents.

right nose closeup.

    Taking a closer look at the right nose section we can get a better view of the panel lines air-vents and the openings for the chin mounted machineguns. There's a small scuff mark in front of the air-vent at the bottom of the fuselage, but that looks more like something that happened during shipping rather than a production error. A quick sanding should get rid of that.

left fuselage half.

    The quality of the molding continues to the left fuselage half which also has the vertical stabilizer.

left nose closeup and canopy actuator.

    Getting in closer we again have nice panel line detail, some vents, machinegun openings. We also see the canopy actuator here which looks to have a decent amount of detail molded.

blast shields, hump, seats.

    Next we have the the blast shields, the hump that goes on top of the fuselage and the seats. These are all nicely molded with no flash in sight. The weird shape of the headrest is actually accurate for the Martin Baker designed seats used in this aircraft.

wingtip fuel tanks.

    Next are the wingtip fuel tanks. And these also present a decent amount of detail with both the refueling cap and pressure vent clearly visible. And we can also see the navigation lights molded here.

instrument panel.

    The instrument panel is molded shockingly well given the size of the part and given that there are no decals for the panel this is a very welcome sight. I can pretty much make out what most of the dials are. from the radar screen to fuel gauges to the artificial horizon. it's all there. And this will give the super-detailers among us a field day. This is really impressive.

cockpit walls.

    Flipping the sprue around we can see that there is absolutely no detail on the cockpit walls. That's a real shame given the large clear canopies of the Dragonfly. If you want to have this look decent, you are going to have to do a lot of scratch building, unfortunately.

sprue B overview.

    The second sprue contains our wings, horizontal stabilizers, landing gear components and a few more antennas.

right horizontal stabilizer.

    The right horizontal stabilizer once again presents a good amount of detail, with just a little bit of flash on the small protrusion. I'm entirely sure what this is. It can't be a pitot tube as the disturbed air coming off of the main wings would give faulty instrument readings. Again, if you have any idea of what these might be let me know in the comments.

counterweights and main wheels.

    Next are some counterweights, or at least I presume are counterweights and the two main wheels. They have some detail on the hub, with some rather simplistically molded tire treads. It's still more than what other manufacturers tend to do at this scale.

main landing struts.

    The main landing struts are also nicely molded with very minimal flash. And they even molded the brake disks albeit they are quite chunky. Those could probably stop a 747-800 dead in it's tracks. Let alone a small military aircraft 😂. It's still nice to see though. They usually get omitted at this scale.

nose gear-bay doors.

    Next are probably worst looking parts in this entire kit, it looks like all the flash has gathered here. This will take quite a bit of cleaning to make them look right. Whatever happened here, hopefully it got fixed.

nose wheel and antennas.

    Then we have the nose gear with some decent amount of detail and a few more antennas that look par for the course.

main gear-bay doors and radar dome?

    The main gear-bay doors are once again molded nicely, next to these are what I presume to be a radar dome or something, that goes on the belly of the aircraft.

left horizontal stabilizer.

    The left horizontal stabilizer is molded just as nicely as the one on the right. Nice panel lines, good separation between the control surfaces and fixed part of the wing.

upper wing halves.

    The quality of the molding continues to the wings as well. The upper wing halves present nice crisp panel lines with vents also molded near the wing-roots.

right upper wing half.

left upper wing half.

    A closer look at one of the wings reveals some rivet detail on the various access panels. The control surfaces also have a lot of nice detail. And on the leading edge it looks like they even molded in the different sections of the de-icing boots.

bottom wing half.

    The bottom wing surface doesn't compromise on detail either. The only let down here would be the airbrakes, the mesh pattern doesn't seem to look too convincing. But overall the details is really nice throughout.

gear-bay detail.

    The gear-bay detail molded on the inside of the upper wing surfaces, leave a lot to be desired. These are really nothing more than just some lines. But since this is not something you'll typically see from normal viewing angles, I guess I can let it slide.

sprue C overview.

    The final gray sprue contains all of the weaponry, fuel tanks and mounting points.

Mk.82 GP bombs.

    The Mk.82 general purpose bombs look really nice as well. The fins are a bit chunky but that doesn't bother me too much.

LAU-3 rocket pod body.

    The body of the LAU-3 rocket pods are also molded nicely with some nice locating holes on the top half. There's not a lot of detail here, but these are just cylinders in real life as well so to that extent they are as accurate as can be.

SUU-14A dispenser end caps and fuel tank fins.

    Then we have the end section for the SUU-14A dispenser, this is the side that gets glued to the tubes so obviously there's no detail here. Below that are fins for the drop-tanks. Although not visible in this blurry image, there are some rivet details around the edges.

LAU-3 rocket pod aero shrouds.

    Next up are the aerodynamic shrouds for the LAU-3 rocket pods, again not a lot of detail here but from what I can tell, this is quite accurate to the real shrouds as well.

LAU-3 rocket pod end caps.

    The disks that represent the tubes and rockets of the LAU-3 are really nicely molded with both the tubes and the rocket tips clearly visible. On the top right disk the rocket detail is missing. Probably a molding mistake, but by removing the equivalent detail on the opposite disk and drilling a deeper hole you could simulate a rocket that's already been fired in case your copy also has this issue.

SUU-14A dispensers.

    The tubes and bracings of the SUU-14A dispensers are also nicely molded. Really, aside from a few very small molding errors, there's not much negative to say about the molding.

bottom drop-tank halves.

    More nice details are present on the drop-tanks. I'm really struggling to find any major issues.

hard points.

    The hard points, whilst a bit simplified also look great for the scale and should do their job nicely.

drop-tank top halves.

    AS expected, the tops of the drop tanks are also nicely molded. There are refueling caps present, fuel hose connectors molded, rivet detail on the fins. It's all there.

SUU-14A tube ends.

    Lastly for this sprue we have the working end of the SUU-14A dispensers. The walls feel a bit thick for the scale, but at least there's detail here. I might try to drill them out a bit to bring them into scale. But even left as ism, should look ok on a finished model. Here we can also see the rivet details on the drop-tank fins mentioned earlier.

sprue D overview.

    The last sprue contains all of our transparencies the canopy, lights and gun sight.

cockpit canopies.

    The canopies are surprisingly molded really well. Given the state of the transparency on the last Academy kit I've reviewed this is a really nice change of space. The outer framework is also quite positive. However, the brace that goes down the middle from front to back is a bit shallow, so masking will be a bit of a challenge.

lights and gunsight.

    The various lights and the tiny gunsight are also nicely molded. The top rotating beacon light seems to be having a bit of an air pocket. But it kind of works as it serves to simulate the bulb inside. I'm not even mad about that.

transparency demonstration.

    The transparency test is passed really nicely, my fingerprint clearly visible through the canopy.

side view of clear parts.

    There's really nothing negative I can say about the transparencies either. Whilst they are not the best I've ever seen, they are definitely far from being the worst.

The good and the bad

    Instructions.

        Pros:

• simple, easy to follow instructions.
• well defined version differences.
• helpful diagrams for correct positioning of lights, antennas, and landing gear.
• nice weapon loadout diagram.

        Cons:

• instructions can feel cluttered in places.
• black and white painting guides are never ideal.

    Decals.

        Pros:

• some single color stencils look OK.
• good colors.

        Cons:

• colors out of register.
• ink blotches.
• mostly unusable.

    Main sprues.

        Pros:

• nice, crisp recessed rivet detail and panel lines.
• good amount of detail throughout.
• impressive detail on instrument panel.

        Cons:

• some parts are overly simplified.
• lack of detail inside cockpit tub and walls.
• flash on nose gear-bay doors.

    Clear sprues.

        Pros:

• parts are transparent.
• nice, positive framework around the canopy.
• nicely molded small parts.
• molding error adds nice detail to rotating beacon.

        Cons:

• center canopy spar very shallow, might make masking difficult.

Final verdict

    For the most part the kit is really nice. The instructions are quite clear and well paced. There are a few areas that seem a bit cluttered but a bit of extra attention should see you through the build easily. The parts are really nicely molded with a good amount of detail. Although there are some parts that seem to be simplified a bit too much despite signs that Academy had the capacity to add more detail.

    The lack of detail in the cockpit, aside from the beautiful instrument panel, is baffling given how large the canopy is. Everything inside will be quite visible and it will feel empty, unless you are willing to put in the extra work to scratch-build the missing details.

    The decals are the biggest letdown of this kit. Again this might just be a problem with my copy, but as this is the only kit I can go off of, I have to point out the bad parts. And the decals are definitely the worse I've ever seen. I simply cannot wrap my head around how this got past quality control.

    In terms of tooling dates. The molds for this kit were tooled back in 1999. Given the amount of detail, that's really surprising. It's annoying that the actual tooling date is not stated on the box, instead having to use scalemates.com or chase other leads online to find out this information. But with that, given the age of the tooling the kit is actually impressive. Not the decals. Those are probably going to end up in the trash.

    I paid around €10 for this kit. I say around because the store's website I bought it from has a bit of a fit right now and won't display my purchase history properly. So I'm going by the current price, hopefully not much has changed in the past year and a half since I purchased it. But given the kit's age, and the price I probably paid, I can't really complain about the molding, even with the small imperfections here and there. The price still doesn't excuse the state of the decals. An aftermarket set will probably cost me 2-3 times what I paid for the kit itself.

    In terms of options, there really aren't many. And the Academy one is the newest. There are some kits from Monogram, Encore, Revell and Hasegawa. But they all use the same 1992 Monogram tooling. So this kit is really your best bet. But I've been waffling on enough.

    If you enjoyed reading this review consider leaving a like and click on the follow button to stay up to date with future posts. Consider also sharing this blog if you think someone might be able to extract any value from it. With that said, I hope you all have a wonderful day, and happy modeling everyone. Cheers! 😁