Minibase Su-33 Flanker-D COCKPIT 1/48 (out of the box)

Manufacturer Minibase
Model Number 8001
Date of release 2021
Part count 27 for seat, 16 for harnesses, 30 for cockpit
Paints used Seat: Lifecolor Black Rubber colors&Co, Cockpit: MRP Sukhoi cokcpit (MRP-195), LifeColor
Decals For seat and cockpit dials and side consoles
Extras -
Positive Very detailed seat and cockpit. Good decals which fits the plastic details

Negative Seat belts are from photo etch and hard to thread through the locks

0:00 Build
0:29 Cockpit ready (rotating)
0:46 Seat pictures
0:56 Seat (rotating)
1:12 Cockpit parts pictures
1:29 Cockpit parts (rotating)
1:46 Cockpit without side panels pictures
1:56 Cockpit without side panels (rotating)
I'm not sure are all the parts necessary to be separate part. Nice thing on the spures is that part numbers are very proud and goes from left upper corner to right low corner as text on the page. It really helps finding the right part. On the photo etch parts there is no such logic and parts are on three different sprues.
Photo etched parts needed for seat is in two separate frets. They are cleverly named A, B and C from largest (size vise) to smallest.Those instructions are a bit cryptic when you start to build them, at least to me they were. You don't immediately get what belt is what in next stage as it is not mentioned in any way.

Minibase has made every belt and buckle in the seat and they are all made from photo etch. Not so that buckles are photo etch and belts from paper kind of material, which would have helped the construction. This decision means that you have to make the part bend from right place from the start as you cant change that afterwards. You can't heat the belt near the buckle as they are very small and softens too much. Also the decision that part of the belt is only threads of photo etch doesn't help the bending and thread the belts (and you can't heat this part either). There is no indication how long you should do the belts, so some of them were left too long.
I wanted belts to be as in some reference pictures where belts are on the seat sides so that you just could sit into the seat and be buckled up. I made all the belts as in instructions, except those that comes from top center to the bottom sides. This was because these were one of the last belts to thread and I haven't annealed them on the right place in the first place. Therefore I put the whole almost ready photo etch 'origami' above a tealight to anneal those last belts and then I dropped the whole thing into the tealight! I picked that up immediately and put it into kitchen towel so that all the tallow would be soaked away. It wouldn't work too well and all the slits were full of tallow. Then I had to warm it up to get it out. It still left some skin to the all the parts. I decided to burn it out, but of course I had done all the connections with super glue and it burned away... So I had to glue all the parts back together. I was really ready to throw this totally to the bin. I glued everything back to place, but decided that no one can see if I just cut those belts that goes to the down and sides..

Is the part count is too much for seat and seat belts? If you want the most accurate with all the details this is what you want. In my opinion you can't have as much detail in any injection molded/photo etched or resin aftermarket product either. You can't see back of the seat when it is in the cockpit and all the belts are quite much for this scale, but at least you can't hope for anything more.
Seat was painted with Lifecolor paints. There is very detailed paint guide to all the the parts. Those colors were Gunse paints and I didn't have these, so I had to deduce colors by the name. But some colors had FS numbers so it was easy to know what was needed. I deviated a bit as in my opinion seat belts were too white done according to instructions. There was few different serials for ejection seat and new and two different (old and new) front but there is no indication in instructions into what scheme those belongs to.

Cockpit was painted with MRP Sukhoi blue, which seems to be quite nice color for cockpit. Decals were very good, with sharp details and all the dials and knobs were at the same place as in plastic. Decals also conformed very well and handling was easy without feeling thick.
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