Lockheed U-2A in USAF service

Kit contents. Lots of plastic bags and a type of polystyrene that really stinks the place up. Kept the box closed during the build… 

What you get for the cockpit is basic but allright. What is lacking is decals for the side consoles, but will make those myself. 

Cockpit assembly and painting in progress 

Cockpit almost done, the main instrument panel is a bit of a laugh. Should have replaced that as well. 

According to various Internet sources HB got the vertical fin wrong in being too vertical. 

The fix is not that difficult, just remove plastic from the fin mount on top of the horizontal tail and fuselage. 

A few minutes of carving and sanding and problem fixed! 

The pod on the RH wing is not supposed to be there so is carved off.  

Wings assembled, requiring filler around the LE inserts and the tip. Fuselage ready for assembly. 

Despite the decent fit I could not get things seamless. While filling the long seam kept on cracking open as well. Duh.. Wings are rescribed and ready. Will be adding a thick metal wire to control anhedral. 

Fuselage seam finally gone, getting ready to install the tailplane and fin. Took some final adjusting to get a reasonable fit of the fin. 

Time to install the wings. Used a copied reference to figure out the correct anhedral. 

Wing joint needed some filler, but nothing major. 

Primer coat applied which highlighted a need for some rework on a few seams. Sanded down the primer coat in preparation for the NMF finish. 

NMF sprayed with Vallejo Air. Not my best effort, with several booboo’s on the underside due to too much paint. But the upper side looks OK. 

Masked and sprayed the nose and antiglare panel. 

The decals went on fine, although they are not very accurate. I replaced the serial number but should have replaced the US Air Force decal as well. I cut out the big carrier sheet between the walkways which made them a pain to apply… 

Based on the various photographic references I did some very light weathering to break up the monotony of the NMF finish a bit. 

Sealed everything in under a semi-gloss coat which turned out a bit more matt than expected. 

Adding the geary bits. Intended to install the air brakes open but an actuator zinged away into oblivion while installing it so I was forced to go for closed after all. Unfortunately the pogo’s ended up floating. Not sure where that went wrong… 

And done! A nice kit to add to my collection although awkard to photograph and an annoying space hogger in the display cabinet 🙂.