From Wikipedia: "The Dassault-Breguet Super Étendard (Étendard is French for "battle flag", cognate to English "standard") is a French carrier-borne strike fighter aircraft designed by Dassault-Breguet for service with the French Navy.

The aircraft is an advanced development of the Étendard IVM, which it replaced. The Super Étendard first flew in October 1974 and entered French service in June 1978. French Super Étendards have served in several conflicts such as the Kosovo war, the war in Afghanistan and the military intervention in Libya.

The Super Étendard was also operated by Iraq (on a temporary lease) and Argentina, which both deployed the aircraft during wartime. Argentina's use of the Super Étendard and the Exocet missile during the 1982 Malvinas War led to the aircraft gaining considerable popular recognition. The Super Étendard was used by Iraq to attack oil tankers and merchant shipping in the Persian Gulf during the Iraq-Iran War. In French service, the Super Étendard was replaced by the Dassault Rafale in 2016."

The small top opening box contains four sprues bagged in two separate plastic bags, with the clear parts coming inside their own bag. The parts are moulded in light grey plastic and have a little bit of flash, but nothing a sharp hobby blade can't deal with.

Instructions are of the fold out type, with the assembly instructions on one page, and the camouflage instructions on the second one. Decals are printed by Cartograf, and are of excellent quality.

I began by removing the wings and gluing them together. The lower halves of the wings had huge ejector towers that needed to be removed, and after doing so, I glued both wing halves together.

Next came the cockpit. It's formed by three simple pieces, an instrument panel with no decals, a seat, and a cockpit tub. All the cockpit pieces were painted flat black, with the cushion of the seat being painted in RAF Dark Green. While the cockpit was drying, I glued two lead weights to the base of the roof of the landing gear, in order to avoid the SuE being a tail sitter. After letting the weights dry for some minutes, I glued the cockpit into place, and then glued the fuselage halves.

With the fuselage halves closed, I glued the wings into their openings. These are a loose fit, so care needs to be taken regarding alignment. The horizontal stabilizers were next. These were glued in place and left to dry. With the wings dry, I glued the missile supports onto the wings.

Argentinian Super Etendards were painted in the French scheme of Dark Sea Grey and White, with the Argentinian flag on the rudder and elevators. I initially wanted to paint my aircraft with RAF Extra Dark Sea Grey, but it was too light. After checking several internet photos, and coming across this MM article, I chose to paint my aircraft with Revell's 78 Tank Grey for the upper surfaces, and white 05 for the lower surfaces. I first painted the upper surfaces with Revell 78, then I painted the flag on the empennage, and then I masked off and painted the white. After all that was dry, I painte the nose black with the aluminium trim. I then gloss coated the entire aircraft for the decals.

Decals came from Aerocalcas's sheet number 72004. These decals are thin, and tend to fold on themselves if you aren't careful, that's how I lost numeral 0752. Anyways, after decalling, I matt coated the entire aircraft with Revell's matt varnish.

The wheel wells were painted aluminium, the landing gear struts were painted white, the same as the wheels. The fuel tank was painted Revell 78 and white, and the Exocet missile was painted white with a light blue tip and a black band behind it.

When I tried to install the gear on its place, I noticed it was a really loose fit, so I reinforced the joint with some CA. After that, I attached the landing gear doors and glued the fuel tank and missile in place.

Academy's Super Etendard is the only modern game in town for a Super Etendard. It comes with decals for the French SuEs used during the Libyan war of 2011. In spite of its shortcomings (lack of cockpit detail), it was a fun kit to build.

Francisco Santoro

25 May 2021

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