A-5C Fantan hobby model 1:48

[hyair]

Thanks for all the replies !

Yair

[hyair]

The Fantan was developed in the 60's in China on the basic design of the Mig -19 which saw great sucess in service and maybe 4000 were built !
However the Mig -19 had it's limitations- very short range , very small load capacity for weapons and simple gunsight for air to ground role.
In the Fantan the front air intake was relocated to the sides of the body and a new radome was installed with pointed nose. The added space was used to have an internal bomb bay and electronic equipment in the radome.
The plane was added with more pylons points under the wings and lower body and was able to carry considerable amount of weapons.
Attached are some images of the two showing the main differences.

[hyair]

The design of the Fantan started earlier then the SE but since both served as attack planes here are the details.
The two are very close in dimensions, the Fantan wings are awept with higher angle and the air intakes are round in the SE. Although the Fantan had two afterburning engines derived from the Mig-19 RD-9 the SE had almost the same speed and climb with the non afterburning Atar engine - partly because of very streamlined body.
The main advantage of the SE was it's weapon delivery system. The SE had precise inertial navigation-bombing system along the ability to carry the deadly exocet air to sea missile that was used with great success against the british ships during the Falkland war in1982.
The Fantan had a small bomb bay but the SE had a better operational range
including refueling capability.
Attached are images of the two in 1:48 scale side by side.

Yair

[CMDRTED]

Thanks for the detailed differences. Very well done aircraft. back to nuts and bolts, how well did the kit go together. was there any fit issues? I had a phantom f4e and the cutlass kit way back and nothing seemed to fit. made be very leery of hobbymodel kits.

[Lex]

I never knew this kit existed. Despite its age you did it a great job Yair. Thank you for sharing. I also like the various comparison shots, it's a very nice way to present built models.

It's interesting that despite the apparent success of the A-5 conversion project by Nanchang, the leading Shenyang bureau or the 'north' bureau, was so entrenched with the nose intake idea that even the later J-8 has one. So much for ignoring the tides of change. The Chengdu bureau (the 'south' bureau) was in fact established by a group of engineers fed up with Shenyang's rigid management and became much more successful in recent years.

A question. Which publisher is the Mig-19 from?

[rmks2000]

Interesting comparison, and nice to see such a great build of a Hobby Model kit.

[hyair]

CMDRTED ,LEX and rmks2000 - thank you all for the replies.Regarding your questions:
CMDRTED - this model is hobby nodel 38 and the origin is way back , however I found it not too bad. Problems with hobby models are mostly related to the fuselage
construction with errors in size of disks and the somtimes the fuselage is not aligned and shifted to one side. I had these problems here but with some alteration the fuselage was fine. Now, if the fuselage is accurate , usually the wings will come just fine. As for hobby model in general their models are hit and miss. I built the SU-9 and YAK 28 and both were OK. I agreed with you about the Cutlass. The only Cutlass that is worth building is the Wilhelmshavner and I will attach images of it.

LEX - The Mig -19 is GPM 120 and is still the best one around so far. The Wilhelmshavener model was very bad and way far from the real thing.

rmks2000 - thanks for the reply.

Attached are images of the Wilhelmshavener F7U-3M CUTLASS modified with transparent canopy.

Yair

[CMDRTED]

Thank you very much for the cutlass pictures. that'll be my go to when I try again.

[hyair]

Two attack planes that entered service in the early 70's.
The Fantan sleek lines vs the fat body Corsair. Each had it's advantages : the Fantan had 2 engines with AB that enabled supersonic speed on the expense of short range and weapon load.
The Corsair had one engine and was subsonic but had a much greater fuel capacity
and much longer range besides a capacity of almost 3 times weapon load !
The Corsair ( named SLUF - short little ugly fellow ) had a very precise weapon delivery system and therefore needed only one pass to destroy a target !. In Vietnam only 54 were lost ( very low attrition rate ).
The Fantan main advantage was the speed but for an attack plane with big payload at low alttitude the speed is always limited to subsonic regardless of aircraft type. So as a pure attack plane the Corsair is much better.
The two had very long carrier with the Corsair in the Hellnic airforce until 4 years ago and the Fantan still flys in Myanmar but was retired in China in 2012.
Attached the two side by side in 1:48 scale.
USAF and Vietnamese markings.

Yair

[hyair]

I review most of my built airplanes and raise some more in this forum as I found the type neglected a bit.

Yair