First things first, the box – nice cover art, keeps all the bits inside and unharmed, does everything you expect out of a box. The cover artist is no Roy Cross, but that’s definitely an F-106. Moving on:
Nice glossy instruction book with text in Mandarin, English, Japanese and Russian. No real surprises in layout, there’s a history of the aircraft followed by the actual instructions with colour scheme instructions at the back. The instructions are nice and clear and a preliminary read-through hasn’t brought up any obvious confusion.
All the sprues come in individual cellophane wrappers (not very green-friendly), which seems usual for Far Eastern kits these days. The sprues are beautifully moulded in a softish grey plastic with fine panel lines and a good level of internal and external detail. Like other Chinese kits I’ve seen, the parts breakdown seems a bit fussy-sometimes things that on a western kit would be one or two parts are supplied as five or six. Still, are we not modellers? Not a big problem.
The radome at the pointy end can be modelled open and there is a finely-modelled interior for it. Unusually the avionics bay behind it can be modelled open, as can the characteristic Convair interceptor weapons bay. There’s a full weapons fit for the bay – four very high quality Falcon missiles, the finest examples of this missile I’ve seen so far, along with a Genie nuclear anti-aircraft rocket or an M61 Vulcan cannon, depending on whether the pre- or post-1972 version is being modelled.
Some thought seems to have gone into the cockpit area, including a choice of early or late ejector seat, and a very nice office can be built, although I’m not sure how much of it can be seen through the tiny F-106 windows. Nevertheless, if the aircraft is modelled canopy-open, there will be something nice to look at.
The canopy breaks down into two pieces, with a choice of rear hood – again early or late. Nicely transparent, does what you expect out a canopy.
It’s an F-106 so USAF is basically all you’re getting, however they’re all colourful birds and here you have a choice of three. I tested one of the markings I’m not intending to use and apart from taking a lot of time to come free of the backing paper, seem fine, without an adverse reaction to Microset of Microsol.
There’s also an etched-brass fret for the cockpit ladder. Not a huge fan of etched brass, but I’ll probably end up using it and if prior experience with brass is anything to go by, swearing at it too.
So, the Meng F-106A. A very nice model to look at, now I’ll have to see how it goes together.
