F/A-18C Hornet Swiss Air Force - 1:48 Revell

[Julien]

F/A-18C Hornet Swiss Air Force

1:48 Revell

The F/A-18 Hornet was developed by McDonnell Douglas and Northrop from Northrop's YF-17 prototype in the 1970's for use by the US Navy and marine Corps as a carrier capable multirole fighter jet. Northrop's YF-17 was initially a design for the US Air Force and McDonnell Douglas were brought in to make it carrier capable following their success with the F-4 Phantom.

In the late 1980's Switzerland after evaluation decided the F/A-18 was the aircraft to equip its Air Force. The aircraft was designed for carrier operations so it was felt a good fit for operations from short runways with steep takeoffs. The aircraft were to be built locally at Emmen. Due mainly to cost implications and some noise abatement problems the Swiss Air Force only works office hours.

The Kit
On opening the box you are greeted by Monograms old F-18 kit. The fuselage including the wings are split top & bottom with 3 additional parts trees.

Construction starts with the cockpit. A basic 4 part NACES ejection seat is constructed and added to the cockpit tub along with an instrument panel, control stick and engine controls. A pilot figure is provided if you wish to use him. Once complete the cockpit is installed in the top fuselage half.

The fuselage halves can then be joined together making sure the tail plane parts and the engine parts are installed first. The two tail planes are joined and the instructions indicate glue is not to be used in order that they can move. Following this the nose is added and the intake parts on both sides.

Next the vertical tails are added along with an arrestor hook, airbrake, and various antennas. The landing gear and gear doors are then added. Due to the design of the landing gear it does contain quite a few parts and these will need to be carefully assembled to get the aircraft to sit right.

Finally the pylons can be added. Sidewinders are supplied for the wing tip rails if you want to use them. However the aircraft regularly fly completely clean or with just a centre line fuel tank. The outer pylons should not be used as these are not correct for Swiss aircraft.

Decals
The decals are the star of this re-release. The design is by Daco Products of Belgium and they are printed in Italy for Revell. The modeller is given two choices of markings from the Swiss Air Force. It should also be noted that the IFF antenna on the nose, and the ID light on the left nose as used by the Swiss Air Force are not included in the model and will have to be sourced by the modeller.

• 18 Staffel "Panthers".
• 17 Staffel "Falcons".

Conclusion
The kit is fairly old now and this shows in the tooling. However the alternatives can be expensive. This kit is a cost effective way to add a Swiss F/A-18 to your collection, with a little work required.

Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit

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