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1/72 F-16B AutoTF


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I’m hoping to do a few F-16s from The Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB. The first will be this F-16B.

 

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Done as the Automatic Terrain Following test bird from the LANTIRN Test Force

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I’ll be using some home made decals for the tail markings (middle left):

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At some point I’ll do the “Bozo Fleet” (test support aircraft) markings as depicted in the Hasegawa kit, but I’ve yet to find a clear coat that does not yellow over time.

Sven

Old Viper Tester

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Welcome aboard Sven, and I like you choice of builds too.

 

Would I be right in thinking you've spent a bit of time one these aircraft?

 

Well good luck with the builds, look forward to seeing them in the gallery.

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Oh geez... this is excellent. I can't wait to see what you build, as I was thinking of building one of these aircraft (specifically 840) or a Danish JSF test aircraft. Did you make those decals yourself? 

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On 1/8/2017 at 4:37 PM, -Neu- said:

Did you make those decals yourself? 

 

Neu - Yes. Made them with a very basic drawing program (MS Office Paint?). Did them in a very large scale so that when I shrunk them down to 1/72 they wouldn't seem so coarse. Scaled and printed them in MS Powerpoint with a laser printer and coated with Micro Scale Decal Film.  The process didn't work so well with the Eglin-based Conformal Fuel Tank test markings (red/white chequers), I'm going back to the drawing board on that one.

 

My son has been hospital the last couple of days and had vascular surgery this morning, hoping to get a start on these later this week.

 

Sven

Old Viper Tester

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2 minutes ago, Old Viper Tester said:

My son has been hospital the last couple of days and had vascular surgery this morning, hoping to get a start on these later this week.

 

Sorry to hear that, hope everything is ok.

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3 minutes ago, SimonT said:

hope everything is ok.

 

Thanks Simon. He's been on dialysis for some time and developed some clots during his weekend session. The docs did a Roto-Rooter and balloons routine to clear everything out. Been here several times before, but still don't take it for granted. Anyway, he should be home tonight and then back to what passes for 'normal' around here.

 

On 1/6/2017 at 5:17 AM, trickyrich said:

Would I be right in thinking you've spent a bit of time one these aircraft?

 

I did two tours at Edwards after graduating from Test Pilot School as a Flight Test Engineer. The first tour I worked the F-16XL, A-10s, the Piper Enforcer, and a few that we called "cats'n'dogs". Then I did three years in London on an exchange tour with the MoD(UK). Then back to Edwards for mostly F-16 work, ending the tour as the Deputy for Engineering for the F-16 Combined Test Force. Most of my flight time was in F-4s flying test support (targets, safety and photo chase, etc) , but I had a fair amount in F-16s as well. Won't lie, I loved every minute of it.

 

Sven

Old Viper Tester

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9 hours ago, Old Viper Tester said:

 

Neu - Yes. Made them with a very basic drawing program (MS Office Paint?). Did them in a very large scale so that when I shrunk them down to 1/72 they wouldn't seem so coarse. Scaled and printed them in MS Powerpoint with a laser printer and coated with Micro Scale Decal Film.  The process didn't work so well with the Eglin-based Conformal Fuel Tank test markings (red/white chequers), I'm going back to the drawing board on that one.

 

My son has been hospital the last couple of days and had vascular surgery this morning, hoping to get a start on these later this week.

 

Sven

Old Viper Tester

 

Very cool nonetheless. 

I hate to ask you this... but would you be willing to print off a set for the ACAT (GCAS) 840? I've got a personal connection with that program so I'd love to build it... I might give it as a gift to one of the pilots. 

 

And I hope your son recovers... no worse feeling than a sick child. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Been getting some work done here – very slowly.

When it comes to model building I have some attention deficit issues. In pulling out the kits for the Auto TF and F-16D DFLCS builds I had to open my stash box labeled Hasegawa F-16s. Arghhh! Must concentrate! SO of course I pulled the necessary F-16B Plus and the F-16D…. and the F-16D Brakeet, and the F-16AM Norwegian Tiger Meet box, and… You get the idea.

I started with painting cockpit tubs:

AutoTF%20Build%20-%204_zpswynchvit.jpg

 

I've removed the seat locater peg on the cockpit floors to allow for aftermarket seats.

 

I then attached the ventral fins and installed the main gear wells, as I prefer to glue these from the inside of the fuselage using Tenax 3 wherever possible:

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The wings with the LAU-129 launchers are intended for an F-16AM. '816 still carried the 16S200 launchers at the time of the LANTIRN terrain following testing.

As you can see from the above pic, I also removed all of the BL755s from the F-16 kits as I won’t be using them and put them in the weapons dump. Hasegawa has a pair of BL755s in every 1/72nd F-16 kit. I now have more BL755s than I will ever use for any Phantom or Brick project I have in mind.

I’ve also stocked the tank farm. I like the outline of the Hasegawa tanks when they start out, but I find after removing seams some of them tend to have an oval cross section, and I don’t mean the centerline, and a tricky seam to get rid of in the tail. If required I may give the AM tanks from Attack Squadron a try.

Installed the cockpit tub and applied the kit decals.

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Note to self – remove the panel outlines from the decals next time.

It looks like the FCP forward console panel slid down. Will have do something about that.

One of the things that bothers me about the Hasegawa Vipers is the cannon port. That little depression is tough to make convincing with paint. It is also a bear to drill out, but that’s what I attempted. I started grinding out the inside with the Dremel then drilled from the outside to better determine how far I should keep grinding. Then went to the outside again with a new No. 11 blade to carve out the muzzle. It’s not the best representation, but this is what I’ve got:

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Turned my attention to the exhaust nozzle. Like others on BM, I’ve cut plenty of “petals” from thin card stock and use these to represent the inner nozzle leaves:

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Glued inside the nozzle:

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Then filed down with a half-round file:

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On to the seats. The Hasegawa seats are minimalism at its finest. They can be made presentable with a lot of work, either scratching up details or using the Eduard PE. I tried the latter on my ADF build, but found the pieces to be very fiddly for my sausage fingers. So this time I’m trying the True Details ACES II seats. The benefit from these seats being a bit narrow to begin with – The Hasegawa cockpits incorporate the sides of their ACES II. Some other AM seats  (e.g., Wolfpack) won’t fit the Hasegawa pit unless you grind out the seat panels from the console sides. Here are the True Details seats so far…

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Still need to add handles and pitot masts, then a wash to bring out details.

 

 

Sif is not impressed

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Thanks for looking in. More later…

Sven

Old Viper Tester

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Old Viper Tester
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lovely work but please tell me you're not completely mad and intend to build all aircraft for all those cockpits? Well for this GB!!

 

You've certainly got a handle of what needs to be sorted out on the model, nice work!

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15 hours ago, Pappy said:

Talk about a production line, that is a very ambitious start,

 

Really just a case of 'so long as I have the Dark Gull Grey in the airbrush'.

10 hours ago, trickyrich said:

please tell me you're not completely mad and intend to build all aircraft for all those cockpits?

 

My sanity may be in question - just ask my wife. There is no way that each of those tubs will result in a finished Viper any time soon. Quick and easy steps are being made on most of the kits, but the ones in the lead will eventually getable the attention.

 

As it is, In dry-fitting the True Details seats, I'm less happy with what now looks like two ejection seat side panels on either side of cockpit. It has me reconsidering tarting up the original kit seats. I'm definitely not keen on grinding away the seat panels on all of those tubs.

 

Sven

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Painted the lip on the intake with a slightly darkened Neutral Grey. Then masked the intake and the canopy:

 

AutoTF%20Build%20-%2029_zpsiofu8b5c.jpg

 

Painted the inside of the intake and the background area of the vertical tail with Floquil Reefer White.

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Once dry, masked the area measured to provide the required background for the homemade tail logo decal. Since the deal is printed on clear decal stock, a white background is usually required to provide white areas of the artwork and/or to ensure color opacity.

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Inside lip of the intake requires some touching up.

 

Sif is still not impressed…

Sif%20-%2020170126%2001_zpsdmtdludy.jpg

Thanks for looking,

Sven

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Accomplished the cleaning up of the camo scheme.

Masked the white background areas for the other homemade decals. If I had planned it better, I would have painted all of these areas white first, then masked the decal shapes, and then painted the camo colours.

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A bit of ‘one step forward, two steps back’ followed. Some of the white areas, particularly the test center tail band were uneven. Had to fix that. To of the tail decals were applied crooked and wouldn’t stand up to refloating and re-positioning. Finally got to where I’m happy with it. Good thing I usually print my decals in triplicate – just in case.

Here’s where it stands now:

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The circular emblem aft of the LANTIRN logo is the Block 40 Integration program patch. This was carried a little later in the LANTIRN integration test program.

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The falcon decal is from the old Microscale sheet, 72-526. The LANTIRN program emblem on the tail is my own, the one on the Microscale sheet was a bit stout for my liking.

AutoTF%20Build%20-%2053_zps5qybzzoi.jpg

Couldn’t resist trying some Flory wash on the fuselage. I think that may be passable as well.

The legend at the base of the LANTIRN program emblem reads "Havoc in the Dark". It shows an F-16 targeting a tank. Someone in the CTF got creative and hung a variation of the emblem in the squadron spaces. The shield kept its shape and legend, but the illustration was replaced with something looking like an F-16 bouncing off of the sides of a valley - a dig at the Auto TF capability.

Thanks for looking in,

Sven

Old Viper Tester

 

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On 2/5/2017 at 11:18 AM, Smudge said:

 

Interesting tip with the plastic card strips inside the nozzle.

 

 

I can't take the credit for this one Smudge. Saw it in another F-16 WIP on BM last year.

 

Sven

Old Viper Tester

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/6/2017 at 5:20 PM, trickyrich said:

she is looking really nice, I do like the colour scheme!

Thanks trickyrich.

 

Nothing done on this bird on the weekend. Did an out’n’back road trip to Long Island at the end of last week. Made it out there as a snowstorm rolled in – perfect end to a 13-hour driving session. Ended up spending an extra day in the hotel. Not a total loss, I had an F-16I kit with me, and got a little carried away. My phone doesn’t do very well close in, so no pictures of the build up (more below).

As for this F-16B, yesterday I applied most of the basic markings courtesy of the old Microscale sheet. The warning markings on the kit sheet are a bit bright for a camo bird. They are fine for the intended Bozo bird. The rescue arrows on the Microscale sheet are probably too toned down. You work with what you’ve got. 

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Also applied the homemade crew names and the obligatory aircraft serial number on the canopy frame. Both of these should probably been a little bit smaller.

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The Microscale walkway markings are just sheet-width lengths of light gray stripes. So these sections were measured with dividers and cut to length. The stripe at the bottom of the sheet had no carrier film. Surprise!

I also touched up the leading and trailing edges of the tail markings. It looks a bit gross here, but at “normal" viewing distance it doesn’t look bad.

AutoTF%20Build%20-%2063_zpswe11sbuq.jpg

 

This is the Hasegawa Sufa kit

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I had my modeling travel kit (basic tools and paints) with me – needed something for the business trips to McAir (sorry… Boeing). The cockpit area had already been sprayed gray so the cockpit, fuselage and spine went together fairly quickly. No filler. A little sanding. I didn’t attach the wings as I wanted to put it back in the box for the trip home. The vertical tail assembly gets locked into the spine so that took precedence.

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Do those IFF blades look big to you? Now that I’ve looked at the pics, I seem to remember something about Sufa cockpits being black, rather than the standard 36231. Will have to check on that.  Brushing the black also didn’t cover the coamings very well . Will have to hit them again as well.

Hasegawa seems to keep adding pieces to their Viper kits and takes little out. Many of the newer releases have multiple tails combinations: A/B, ADF, C/D, “MLU” (parabrake/ECM housing), or Block 50/60. They also have a sprue with extra antennae, blivets, excrescences , etc. The point being that I would like to do Block 50+ birds for Singapore and Turkey at some point and it seems the latest release of the Polish Tiger Meet pair would make that possible. Anyone know if all the bits are included for these other air forces in the Polish release? I know... as soon as I get one almost finished, Hasegawa will do a re-release with all of the required bits and markings.

Thanks for looking,

Sven

Old Viper Tester

Edited by Old Viper Tester
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AutoTF looks awesome!!!

 

and you're building another F-16 as well, what scheme have you in mind for this bird? The Polish birds are all block 52's, I don't know if the Hasegawa has those included.

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On 2/15/2017 at 3:26 AM, trickyrich said:

The Polish birds are all block 52's, I don't know if the Hasegawa has those included.

 I bought the Polish Tiger Meet pair last week. Looks like there are enough added billets for Turkish, Hellenic, Chilean, or Singaporean. Will have to study more photos before I'm sure. Back to the Auto TF...

 

In the home stretch now.  I’ve fashioned a frame for a WAR HUD out of beer can aluminium.

 

AutoTF%20Build%20-%2064_zps51ysrmn3.jpg

 

Painted black and filled with Krystal Klear. And added the AOA vanes by Master.

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The nose pitot is by Master as well. It was fitted earlier because the lower nose radome was a short shot. Built up the missing area with Milliput and incorporated the probe to avoid having to go back a drill a hole at the point of the radome.

Making sure the HUD doesn’t interfere with the canopy…

AutoTF%20Build%20-%2069_zpsiniybgt7.jpg

Added the LANTIRN nav pod from the Hasegawa Weapons Set VII.

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Installed the nose gear. True Details seats in place.

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Must clean up that canopy sill.

Added the main landing gear and AIM-9J training rounds - shaved off the rollerons to represent flat plate fins (must flat coat the missiles) and the intake nav lights.

AutoTF%20Build%20-%2091_zpsssc47gdl.jpg

 

Still some touching up to do and adding the sensor window to the LANTIRN pood.

Thanks for looking in,

Old Viper Tester

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I’m calling her done, for the purposes of this GB. I’ve left the canopy separate in case I ever find a good solution to a better looking canopy support brace. I’ve also left provision for external tanks- though I will probably end up filling those in as the Auto TF testing rarely used them.

AutoTF%20Build%20-%20106_zpsmatrluoc.jpg

 

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That DFLCS bird is still vexing me, maybe I'll try to clear my head with the Sufa.

As always, thanks for looking in.

Old Viper Tester

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