Alan P

While all that was drying I quickly got to assembling the flying surfaces: The fit of the parts is excellent. I don't think I'll need any filler on the leading edges at all. No warping either, it all sits nice and straight. The eagle-eyed among you will notice the wrong tail for the Block 50+... this was because the brief for the build changed today, so I have a new spine to fit and the tail will be updated! Okay, now for the intakes again. First I sealed the end of the intake with blu-tacked milk bottle caps and paper towels. I stopped up any other holes with more blu-tac: The filling process was so messy, I didn't get any photos! But I filled both intakes up to the lip with goopy satin white emulsion. I left it for a while and then let it pour out the bottom back into the paint pot. I'm left with nice seamless intakes. Last job was to fit the cockpit sidewalls to the D cockpits and then add the photoetch. Although I've posted these all at once, this was just one and a half days work. Just primed all the cockpit parts, so the next pictures will be painting the interior. Alan

Next, I moved on to the interior. You might remember from my F-16F build I used emulsion paint to obtain a seamless intake. Same story here. The two aircraft have different intakes, but the Academy kit supplies both GE and P&W MCID and NSI intakes. Nice one, Academy! Not so nice - the NSI intake had some impressive sink marks owing to the nose gear wheelwell moulded to the bottom: We'll need to come back later. Here are the two upper fuselage halves - the single-seater has the option to show the M61 cannon and ammunition drum, but the twin-seater is closed up. One weakness of the Academy kit is the splitter between the fuselage and the intake lip is far too narrow. It requires a shoe to expand the gap: Here are my pair of shoes ready for cutting and shaping! And fitted to the respective aircraft: Meanwhile, both intakes are ready for the seamless treatment: More on that coming up... Alan

Started where I usually start - the cockpit. The customer provided a double set of ACES II seats for the two-seater: Sadly they are just the seats and don't come with ejector rails. So I nicked them from the kit seats. Just a nifty bit of work with a razor saw and... Close enough! Next, decided to give all the resin a scrub and wash: Aires might be a pig to fit, but it looks amazing! Speaking of a pig to fit....The cockpit set would have you remove an awkward chunk of the kit fuselage aft of the cockpit tub. Rather than a lot of cutting followed by the inevitable fiddly filling and sanding, I hit upon a better idea. It was much easier to cut the back off the cockpit set and cut and sand it down into fascias which fit the kit parts perfectly. No surgery required on the kit parts and no messy filler required! Job done. There was a bit of material to remove at the front coaming but it was easy to measure using the resin coaming as a guide. Much tidier, and a lot quicker. Alan

Hi all, Back again with another build blog. This time it's a double build of the 1/32 Academy F-16CG/CJ kit. The first is a Norwegian F-16 from the Gulf War 2 era (2004): (pic credit: f-16.net) The other is a Turkish F-16D Block 50+: (pic credit fineartamerica.com) The first comes from the vanilla F-16 kit: The D comes from limited edition kit from Korea: The customer has provided me with a dazzling array of aftermarket items including Big Ed photoetch for both, Aires wheelwells and Wheelliant wheels, Aires cockpit for the single-seater and tailpipe set for the Block 50. The Aires cockpit set looks particularly good! Trying to build these side by side in record time. Wish me luck! Alan

That's really helpful, David! Thanks. The doors are okay, I will build up the interior with some plasticard and sand the bulges off. Might be better to use the kit wheels and just sand a mm off each side to thin them out. I think the parapack tail extension in the Academy kit is the wider chord version so I'll stick with that. I'll use the Pratt exhaust from the kit and hope I can hide all the seams! I've begun the build as it is, so thanks for the input. Alan Edit: re the grey, I rarely use just one shade, so I'll start with the Xtracrylix 270 and work from there! Also, the orange stencils will be borrowed from the Sufa kit and the upper ones will be painted by hand using Eduard stencil masks in Dk Gull Gray 36231. Should look okay!

Hi you knowledgeable lot, I've been tasked with building a Norwegian F-16 Block 15 MLU in 1/32 from the Academy Block 40/50 kit. As far as I can gather the cockpit should be okay, the NSI intake and nozzle are included and the parabrake housing is also in the kit. The problem is landing gear. I've drawn a complete blank with early F-16 wheels in the aftermarket. It seems I might be able to use the wheels from an old Hasegawa kit but where would I find one of those?! Also the kit only has the bulged gear doors and nobody seems to make alternatives for those either. (pic from designer.home.xs4all.nl/) If anyone knows better, would you kindly point me in the right direction, please? Many thanks, Alan

Thanks Stephen! Sorry I missed replying to your comment earlier.

I'm sure that is the intent of the feature. Not just a self-indulgent quest for adulation! Thanks for your help and humour during the process! Alan

Ha! All one times. Thank you so much Mike. I feel loved again! Al

I'm still building the C version. So far it's a very nice kit, but the cockpit needs a lot of extra detailing (wiring! Tons of it) as it is very visible through the large canopy. That's as far as I've got, but I wasn't prepared for how plain the kit cockpit was. For that reason I've added the Eduard pre-painted etch (partly repainted to be the correct colour!)

Thanks very much, you guys! Customer was also happy

Please. LIKE ME!

Well, I skipped the last bit, so here's the finished product! Rest of the photos are HERE Thanks for those who followed the progress of the build. Cheers, Alan

Thanks M0.82!

Thanks very much again, Keith!