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Project Notes

#065 J-20

Building the Trumpeter 1:144 kit of the Chengdu J-20 fifth-generation fighter of the PLAAF (no electronics here, just a great little kit)

Build

Notes

The Chengdu J-20 (成都飞机工业集团的歼20) is the third operational fifth-generation fighter stealth fighter aircraft after the F-22 and F-35.

It is currently in service with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force

The Kit

Trumpeter have 5 different kits of the J-20 at the moment in 1:48, 1:72 and 1:144. This is the 1:144 kit which is a cheap but fantastic buy - brilliant detail and a relatively easy build although in-flight conversion wasn’t really anticipated by the kit.

Paint Scheme

Feature Color Recommended Paint Used
camo 1     70.989 Sky Grey
camo 2     70.870 Medium Sea Grey
camo 3     70.992 Neutral Grey
exhaust     77.701 Aluminium

Build Log

The kit details are very good for the scale. In-flight conversion wasn’t really anticipated by the kit, but not too difficult.

build01a

Cockpit details are just great:

build01b

No 1:144 pilot figures on hand so I made a quick-and-dirty stand-in from spare sprue!

build01c

Behind the scenes with the in-flight base. Getting cotton wool to look like realistic clouds is tiring.

build02a

成都飞机工业集团的歼20 Caught in-flight, the “Mighty Dragon” Chengdu J-20.. this is the Trumpeter 1:144 kit - fantastic detail, though it took a bit of conversion to get it nicely wheels-up .. including a hand-carved pilot!

#scalemodel #plaaf #1144scale

build02b

build02c

build02d

build02e

build02f

Just remounted in a picture frame, and it’s now hanging on my “wall of flight”😁

build03a

build03b

build03c

Credits and References

About #65 scale modelsCraft

This page is a web-friendly rendering of my project notes shared in the LittleModelArt GitHub repository.

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