YF-16, the second prototype

[Giorgio N]

Here's my entry for the F-16 STGB, the second YF16 built. This will be made from the Academy 1/72 kit:

I've always been attracted to the second YF-16, in no small part thanks to the very interesting camouflage scheme it carried. So it was that when I saw the local Academy distributor stand at a model show I checked immediately if they had this kit. They did, and for a very small sum it joined a few other kits in the bag.

A quick look at the content shows that this is indeed a very simple kit:

I'm not 100% sure, but I've been told that this kit is simply an unauthorised copy of the original Hasegawa YF-16 kit. Kit that was later reboxed with the parts required for the CCV version. With Vingtor building YF-16 Nr.1 from and the Plasticsurgeon building the CCV, both from the hasegawa kits, and me with this one, there will be a few prototypes built !

The plan for this kit is to try and improve some areas and make it look better, without however becoming too obsessed. There might be a couple of small corrections to do but I'll check the old Detail & Scale book first, that has a review of this kit and some information on the YF-16 prototypes.

Some detail will have to be added to the cockpit, the wheel wells and the exhausts. The plan is to scratchbuild everything, no aftermarket here. Hopefully the decals will be ok, if not I'll see what I have in the spare box.

[Vingtor]

It will be interesting to see how different modellers build the same kit.

A quick look at the content shows that this is indeed a very simple kit:

I'm not 100% sure, but I've been told that this kit is simply an unauthorised copy of the original Hasegawa YF-16 kit.

From this photo is seems to be the same as the Haswgawa kit, or a copy.

Nils

[Giorgio N]

Nils, judging from what I've seen of your models you'll sure do a much better job than I can ever do !

The fact this is a copy of the hase kit does not surprise me: many early academy kits were copies. The same day I bought this I also bought the academy MiG-23 and this too is a copy of the hasegawa kit, only difference the recessed panel lines instead of raised. Still, for £9 both kits they will provide enough modelling fun (even if I have a revell F-16 and an RV MiG-23 for some more serious build project).

[Giorgio N]

Ok, time to start posting something !

First work on this was to rescribe the wings. Not because I found anything wrong in the panel lines, that already recessed, but because they were very faint and really needed to be deeper. As I was working on the wings I also filled the holes for the pylons (that I will not use) and a couple of recesses.

Instead of starting from the cockpit, as it would be usual, I decided to start from the back end and improve somewhat the exhaust. As I said at the beginning, on this kit I want to use some old school modelling and see if I can achieve a decent result.

Here's how the single part exhaust looked like:

The first job was to sand way the petals proper, so leaving only the outer feathers, a job made boring by the thickness of the plastic:

Armed with very thin plasticard strips, it was time to add the outer petals, that in real life are attached at the rear to the feathers:

And finally, with the same strips, I added the inner petals:

Not as good as an aftemarket resin part, but way better than the original IMHO !

After the exhaust, I decided to do something to the main wheel wells. This is what the kit offers:

Now ideally I should have cut all the area and rebuilt the whole structure, but I decided to take a less involved approach by eliminating the middle part and adding some structural detail. Here's a picture of the first few parts, the center frame and a few stiffeners (the smaller ones).

Now it's time to add the bigger frames. What I'm building is actually something similar to the F-16 series aircraft gear well, might not be 100% correct but it will do.

Thanks for looking !

Edited May 28, 2012 by Giorgio N

[Vingtor]

Seems like the Academy kit is the same as the Hasegawa. Be aware of the ventral fins though, as they are not correctly shaped.

Your changes really improves the model. I'm looking forward to see how it develops.

Nils

[Giorgio N]

Thanks Nils ! I'm watching your build with interest and noticed the reduction in size of the ventral fins. Another addition I'll copy from your model is to move flaps and slats.

Little update: yesterday night I completed the structure of the main gear bay:

I'll now add a few pipes and cables.

Another part that needs work is the air intake: this is not really realistic, having no depth.

The plan is to make it deeper and this will affect also the area around the nose gear well. This is not good anyway, having no depth at all.

[PanzerPaulo]

yeah!!! that's modelling in action!! I'm keeping an eye on this build for sure!

[Parabat]

Superb work Giorgio, liking this a lot!

[Giorgio N]

Thanks for the nice words guys ! I'm trying to use this model to learn some new tricks, although when I compare the kit to the recent Revell F-16 I wonder why I didn't just build one of those straight from the box..

Small update: the air intake need work ! I drilled open the part and then rebuilt the structure for the nose wheel well. This was very simple, just a bit of 1 mm thick plasticard. It's shown here, the filler on the sides still need sanding of course and after that I'll add some detail (and drill the hole for the gear leg).

The excess plastic that can be seen at the front is part of the intake inside..

Initially I wanted to build the inside of the intake with milliput, I then tried to use another two-component epoxy but I wasn't happy with the result. In the end I just applied a rolled square of plasticard, not great but will do the job. The excess plastic at the front will be cut before gluing the front part of the intake. Of course now I'll have to be carefil not to cut through the intake walls when I'll drill the hole for the nose gear leg... maybe I should have done this before !

Next part: detailing the nose gear well and all the wheel well doors.

P.S.: the cutting mat on which I have the parts give the idea of the size: each square is 10 mm wide.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Giorgio N

[Navy Bird]

Nice work, Giorgio! Always liked that number 2 YF-16 camo myself. What are the FS numbers for it?

Cheers,

Bill

[AnonymousDFB1]

Nice innovative work there

[Giorgio N]

Thanks everyone, glad you like it!

Bill, I'm not sure of the FS colours used. I've seen references to some Ford automotive paint for this scheme, at least for the white. I believe the blue is FS 35450 and this is what I'll use on my model. Even if it's not 100% correct, it looks extremely similar. For the white, I'll mix some white and very light grey.

Some more work dove over the weekend ! The front part of the air intake received the splitter (or whatever it is) so typical of the F-16 family. This was done using an aeroclub plastic profile of those sold to make struts on biplane. It's maybe a bit larger than it should, but I like the airfoil profile it has

At that point I left the air intake parts and decided for some reason to do something to the main landing gear well doors. These are completely flat on the inner surfaces in the kit but I felt some detail was needed. Now I'm very bad when it comes to make two identical parts, so I decided to exploit the technology: I took a picture of an F-16 part as a model and drew a pattern for the door inner surfaces on my PC. This was done using my trusted Corel Draw software. The drawing was then printed on an A4 sheet of adhesive paper:

The paper templates were attached to a 0.25 mm thick plasticard sheet (easy to do as they were printed on adhesive paper) and the parts cut using a pen-knife

Finally, the plasticard bits were glued onto the doors, not before having thinned the door (and they needed a lot of thinning...). Here's the result:

The other door came practically identical, something that as I said I usually find hard to achieve. Guess I'll use my drawing software more and more often in the future !

This morning I also started to look into the cockpit. The parts provided by Academy are really poor !

The kit is clearly a copy of the original Hasegawa kit (check the one Vingtor is building on this same STGB) but the hasegawa cockpit was a little better. Something must be done here !

As a starting point I've decided to use a part from another illegal copy: the Mastercraft kit ! This is a very rough copy of the Italeri F-16, itself a less than stellar kit. However the Mastercraft kit includes parts for both a single and a two-seater, so the second cockpit tub was donated to the Academy kit.

It's still a rough piece of plastic, but at least already as the shape of the consolles. I still have to find a panel and I migth have to scratchbuild this.. although somewhere I should have the rear instrument panel of a true Italeri F-16 I built many years ago.

So far so good, however I'm afraid I'll not complete this by the end of the STGB: I have to leave for a long business trip and so the kit will stay behind while I'm somewhere else... should I not be back in time, I'll start a new thread in the general WIP section of the forum.

[Vingtor]

Great improvements to the kit, all of them!

Nils

[F16VIPER]

In my modest opinion, what makes or breaks that plane is the colour selection.

I have seen various models of Yf-16-2 and they were let down by the inaccuracy of the colour scheme.

Due to lack of time I have not progressed with the construction of my own model I tried to build

a while back. In the discussion here I tried to determine the colour used for the camouflage scheme.

http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air...howtopic=218011

Regards

[bearmatt]

I just finished mine.

And I agree with F16VIPER, this is the most tricky part about that plane.

Well...what is super difficult, is to judge and decide upon the original color, because not even on pics you can figure that out....

Check this out:

First serie (I went for that shade)

But then, you also see pics like these, which go more into cremish white...:

And check the difference between the front part and rear part of this one out:

And here a comparison to the white white of the proto 1

A lot of pics about the YF-16 can be found here

btw: how is your project doing?

Greetings

bearmatt

[Jennings Heilig]

Seems like the Academy kit is the same as the Hasegawa.

Not the same kit. Academy is the mortal arch-enemy of Hasegawa, and no Hasegawa kit has ever been in an Academy box. The Academy YF-16 is a shameless rip off of the Hasegawa kit, done when that was all Academy was capable of.