Italeri 1/72 F-35A Lightning II Kit Preview

By Michael Benolkin

Kit Preview

The Joint Strike Fighter program started with a set of requirements for a tactical fighter that would meet the operational needs of the US Air Force, US Navy, and US Marine Corps using an airframe that maximized the number of common parts and thereby reduce development and maintenance costs. As with any ambitious program like this, the devil is in the details and as the program evolved, challenges arose. The first step in the program was to determine the best overall design and Boeing developed the X-32 that had, shall we say, a rather unique appearance. Lockheed Martin countered with the X-35 and this design would ultimately prevail. This victory made Lockheed Martin the only US company to produce the only two Generation Five fighters in US service - the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II.

Model Rectifier sent over a test shot of the upcoming Italeri 1/72 F-35A Lightning II kit. As you can see in these images, the kit is presented on two parts trees plus a small tree of clear parts (this test shot had the canopy only). We'll be doing a quick build of this kit over the next few days and we'll see if this kit assembles as nicely as it looks. With no instructions or decals in the unmarked box, I won't be able to comment on any options, but from what I can see here:

• Decent cockpit
• Positionable canopy
• Positionable flaperons
• Positionable stabilators
• Positionable rudders
• Positionable weapons bay doors
• Nice details in the weapons bays
• Positionable landing gear
• F135 engine
• 2 x AIM-120 AMRAAM
• 2 x GBU-31 JDAM

You can see our quick-build of this kit here. My sincere thanks to MRC for this test shot preview!