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Eduard 1/48 Sukhoi Su-25K

By Chris Banyai-Riepl

Overview

The Sukhoi Su-25 was the Soviet Union's A-10 equivalent, developed at roughly the same time and adapting to the same mission. While the A-10 had to wait until the first Gulf War to get combat experience, the Su-25 got firsthand frontline experience right from the prototype stage with the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. That conflict proved the concept, and with some tweaking the Su-25 was ready for mainline service. The type proved quite popular in export as well, with well over twenty nations flying the type.

The Kit

Eduard's kit of the Su-25 is a re-release of the very decent Kopro kit, but with some very nice upgrades in the form of photoetch and resin. Molded in a gray plastic, the parts feature recessed panel lines throughout. Those said panel lines are somewhat soft, but once they're covered up by multiple layers of paint (and most Su-25s had multi-color camouflages), they should be fine. The photoetch provides a great mix of interior and exterior details, while the resin parts cover the seat, nose gear fender, and chaff dispensers.

Starting construction like most aircraft kits with the cockpit, this replaces most of the plastic details with photoetch bits, most of which are pre-painted. There are new instrument panels, canopy sills, rudder pedals, and control column details. The boarding ladder is provided as well, which requires opening up the fuselage for that part. With the basic interior together, the fuselage can go together, and the rest of the fuselage assembly can be completed with the addition of the engine pods. These feature a continuous trunk, split into right and left halves, which will result in a very challenging seam to fix. I would recommend cutting the section out between the exhaust insert and fan blade insert, which would allow you to glue the intake trunk together, fill the seams, and then add the fan blade/exhaust blanks.

The basic construction is very straightforward after this point, with the wings, stabilizers, and vertical fin all fitting onto the fuselage. With so many flying surfaces separate, an alignment jig becomes very useful. On the underside, the landing gear is suitably busy, with additional photoetch and resin details improving the realism significantly. While on the underside, there is a handful of weaponry provided, with bombs, rocket pods, missiles, gun pods, and drop tanks provided. The Su-25 can carry far more than this, so raid your spares box for additional weapons, should you wish.

After applying the included EZ Mask canopy and wheel masks, the next step is to put some color on the model. This kit comes with no less than six schemes from three countries. The Russian options take the lion's share of the decal sheet, with three options, while the remaining half feature two Czech and one Iraqi Su-25. For the Russian examples, there is Red 16 from the 160th UAP, Russian Naval Aviation, in the summer of 2000, Red 25 from the 388th OShAP based in Germany in 1993, and Red 29 from the 378th OShAP in Afghanistan in 1988. The Czech examples include 6019 "Anca" from the 30th bilp in August 1988 and 1002 from the 32nd zTL in May 1996. Finally, the Iraqi example is #3009, one of the handful that was in the Iraqi Air Force at the beginning of the first Gulf War. The decals are very nicely printed and it will be difficult to decide on just one scheme.

Conclusion

This is a very welcome re-release of the Kopro Su-25 kit, as the additional resin and photoetch provided by Eduard really do a lot to enhance the final model. If you had been thinking of getting the Kopro kit, now is the chance to do it, as it will be unlikely to find a better deal than this one. My thanks to Eduard for the review sample.