Soviet Stealth - Sukhoi Su-40 Flatliner - What-if

[Zen]

Hi everyone, i've been working on a project for a GB over on Whatifmodellers.com but i thought it would be interesting to share it here.
So, i'm building one of the "Whif-in-the-box" Italeri/Testor's 1/72 Mig-37 Ferret as the Sukhoi proposal for the first Soviet stealth fighter competition in 1983.
I've always hated the way the original model looks so i bought this a couple of years ago with this surgery in mind, it always looked like a prototype of a fighter instead of a rival to the F-117 to me so a prototype it shall become. I'm not a good modeller so i won't bother you with descriptions, i believe the pics show what's been done pretty well so here goes...

Started out by laying a layer of Tamiya putty on the nose and stole a pair of F-16 wings from the Hasegawa F-16I, which is getting F-22 wings...



I've only bought Tamiya acrylic colors so i had to mix a bit of XF-26 matte green, X-4 gloss blue and X-2 matte white to achieve something close to the color used in Soviet aircraft interiors...



































After a few more layers of putty later, the nose was sanded down to shape, so i gave it a shot of XF-1 cause i had to paint the inside of the intakes before closing up the top fuselage, but you can see i got carried away and sprayed the whole thing to see if the sanding had been well done, and success was achieved with the Ultimate sanders i won on a live show!



The windscreen was needed in place to finish the rhinoplasty...



These last pics are test shots with the landing gear in place, just to see if everything was well aligned after gluing the wings and stabs on, and the final shape is revealed...





Tonight while watching the live show on Youtube, got the speed brakes on, puttied and sanded down...



And also assembled the pilot from a Revell U.S./Nato pilots to pose as a Soviet test pilot...



So, that's what's been done so far, i believe that's all the sanding done, next is mask the canopy and paint the pilot, as soon as that's done, it's time for paint.

[Zen]

Well, managed to get some paint sprayed on this thing after i added a couple of air data probes stolen from an Italeri Su-27 that lies in the pile of shame, AKA, the guinea pig pile...



Pilot's painted but i admit i've done better...



Also mixed up some more paint and got close to the tone i got on the first go, so i masked and painted the inside of the canopy and touched up the LG bays...



Yesterday, after my stash reorganization, still managed to spray the fuselage and tires in the same Tamiya XF-69 , like Mick said: "Paint it black!"



It might look like a dark gray but the pic is too bright, in person it looks black...

After a family lunch, i've got the afternoon free for some modelling so probably more to show later on.

[chief5437]

that looks very cool. great mods/scratch building! enjoy your lunch

[Zen]

that looks very cool. great mods/scratch building! enjoy your lunch

Thank you, Chief! Glad to know you like the "thing"! And lunch was well served and enjoyed...
My intention with the mods was just to try to give it a look that didn't hurt my eyes... Could have done a better job with the details but i din't wanna waste too much time with this build, i've got 2 other builds waiting for this to get off bench.
Those other builds are of more interest to me, the second version of my F-16 what-if series, and my second holy grail build, the YF-23 Black Widow...

Well, i got the thing gloss coated and after it dried up i took a good look at it and found it looks strangely different...
i'm thinking it could be because of something i did just out of curiosity, which was to coat it in the same X-10 Gun metal i used on the nozzle, just before i sprayed on the XF-69 Nato black...
When it comes to painting, i like to get to know the paints i use, tried Vallejo's and didn't like them much so i use Tamiya on everything and i do this to see how they behave... and i also enjoy using the airbrush.



It showed a lot of the areas where i slacked off with sanding and it really wasn't what i was looking for so i masked up the nozzle and then sprayed the XF-69 Nato Black. I know that Tamiya's Nato black isn't flat black and that matte colors darken a bit when gloss coated but this looks a bit different
What do you guys think, could the floor varnish i use, somehow blend in both layers of paint? It's all acrylics...



Anyway, no big problem cause i do like it so, decals start... now!

[Zen]

Post-decals gloss coat sprayed on yesterday, and landing gear painted...



Today i'll try to come home early from work, if that happens, final assembly and a final matte coat to finish it off...

[Zen]

Ok, so this one's done... Had a few problems with the decals, silvering on most but i believe that's also my fault, looking back i think i should've sanded the model's surface after the XF-69 went on... either that or the first gloss coat wasn't thick enough to level out the matte finish...
Anyway, beside that, the windshield somehow got smeared with glue or something, i don't know what happened...
Enough , here it is, with a somewhat long fiction story, so if you don't want to read, just scroll down to the pics...

"In 1979, Serghey Burchisnyov, a secret agent living in the USA under the false identity of a German aeronautical designer called Martin Strauss, working for the KGB, had successfully managed to ilude the US intelligence about his past and infiltrated the staff at the installations of the famous Lockheed Skunkworks at Palmdale, CA. After some months working there as a secretary for the chief designer, Martin was able to get access to some information on the F-117 program, including some samples of the paint that was going to be used on it.
Being able to follow the program for 2 years without ever blowing his cover, the info he gathered was then transferred to the OKB-51(Sukhoi) and OKB-155(Mikoyan-Gurevich) for the tender of the first Soviet stealth aircraft.
It is not known by US authorities, exactly what info was stolen but, in Russia the OKB teams had a long task ahead of them. Although the material was varied in subject, it was very incomplete and sparse in detail because of Martin/Serghey's insufficient security clearance, so work was done over a 6 year period, where the engineers had lots of new problems to solve.
Due to budget being limited to development and construction of a technology demonstrator, Sukhoi and Mikoyan were only to build the prototypes at around 2/3 of the real size intended for production models.
Still, with so many restrains and the limited means they had, they pulled through and with cooperation between the 2 design bureaus, Mikoyan-Gurevich Developed what was to be called the Mig-37 Ferret B, and was pretty much the same concept of the American F-117, which was to be a stealth bomber.
Sukhoi's designers took a different approach to the idea and tried to develop a multi-role stealth fighter that could defeat anything in the skies.
The outcome was a very streamlined design, especially when compared to the F-117 Nighthawk and even to Mig's design.
Although very similar to the Mig, the Su-40 Flatliner, as NATO would come to call it, had a four poster tail configuration, as opposed to the other two "known" designs.
The wing configuration would also be different, trapezoidal design but with reverse angle on the outer portion beyond the flaperons, with a sweepback angle of 55,5º on the LE. The same angles were used for the horizontal stabilizers, that would greatly improve maneuverability.
Common design features were demanded by the Soviet state department so, the twin engine configuration would be the same but Sukhoi thought of adding a 2D TVC nozzle to the exhaust system, for increased maneuverability and lower IR signature.
Excellent maneuverability was indeed a requirement that Sukhoi's engineers wanted to fulfill, but he Soviet metallurgic industry wasn't advanced enough to produce a metal that could cope with the high temperatures reached by the the engine's afterburner combustion gases, so the 2D TVC nozzle had a low life expectancy and high maintenance hours and costs. The engines used on this prototype were a development of the R95sh series used on the Su-25 Frogfoot, with no afterburner, but for the production models, there would be bigger engines with afterburners.
The first example was finished in September, 1986, and the first flight took place on May 1st, 1987 at Kubinka air force base and was uneventful. The aircraft behaved well in all test-flights and was reported had a tremendous rate of climb, caused by the thrust-to-weight ratio being higher than 1/1, because of the light weight composite materials used in it's structure. The prototype was given the nickname "Black shark" by test-pilot Vladimir Ilyushin and was flown by him throughout the short test flight series until the project was cancelled by lack of funding.
With the economic and political situation in the Soviet Union showing signs of problems throughout it's member states, the funding for new developments was completely cut down when there was only one finished prototype of the Flatliner, in late 1987. Unfortunately, the world would not get to see it fly as the KGB deliberately destroyed the both prototype and all paper and digital trail regarding this program back in 1991, after collapse of the Soviet Union, making all efforts to find any information or technical data almost impossible.
After the end of the Cold war, after Perestroika and Glasnost settled in, the Western intelligence services were to be publicly humiliated by the secrecy that kept both the Mig-37 and Su-40 jets completely unknown to them until 1996, when a wood replica of the Flatliner was displayed at the Monino air force museum in Moscow. This replica was built by former sukhoi staff who'd worked on the real project, as a tribute to Sukhoi's and Russian people's glorious achievements."























I know it's not much but i had fun anyway, IMHO it looks better than the original design so my objective was achieved.
Hope you guys like it, any comments, criticism or advice are always welcome. Thanks for looking in.

[IanG]

Looks fantastic, brilliant.

[Zen]

Looks fantastic, brilliant.

Thanks, Ian, glad you like the little beast.