NPO VES 1/72 Su-15TM By Edward Matthews

History

The development of the Su-15 started with the Su-7, when the Soviet Air Force was looking for a high speed, high altitude interceptor for front line duty.  The Su-15TM was the final design of the Sukhoi line of interceptors.  It has earned its place in history as being the aircraft that shot down the Korean airliner invading the Soviet's airspace.

The Kit

The VES kit of the Su-15TM consists of approximately 94 injected molded pieces, with an additional sprue of 6 injected clear pieces.  Decals consist of 5 schemes.

Molding quality is so-so.  While outline wise the kit is spot on for accuracy, the model suffers from some inconsistent molding.  While most of the rivets are "depressed", or "engraved", there are quite a few that actually "stand proud" of the parts.  Panel lines are engraved and appear to be pretty nicely done.  All control surfaces are molded separately, an extremely nice touch.

At the same time that I purchased this kit I also purchased the NeOmega replacement ejection seat.  I highly recommend this seat as a viable alternative to the less than stellar kit seat.  There is very little detail inside the cockpit - hopefully NeOmega or someone else will release a resin cockpit for this model.  If you clos the canopy you won't need to worry about the lack of detail, but the plane had a very busy cockpit and the kit will look better if more detail is added for displaying with an open canopy.  The canopy is quite thick and not very clear, unfortunately.  "Heat squashing" an alternative will be very difficult primarily due to the rear view mirror on the top, but also because of the "obvious" framing.

Unfortunately one of the front nose halves was separated from the sprue during shipping.  Unfortunate because the plastic is very soft and I'm left with a "divot" to fill, which means losing the surrounding molded in detail.

The missiles in my kit are very poorly molded.  A good portion of them has sink marks that will be difficult to fill.  I will be looking for after market missiles.

Conclusion

Yes, this kit will require some work.  However, it is more accurate - and more complete - than the KP kit and will build into a nice representation of the Su-15TM.  With the way VES designed the nose we can hope for earlier versions of the Su-15.