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1/48 Hobby Boss F-111F Aardvark **FINISHED**


Muzz

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I've had this kit and decals in the stash for about 5 years now and I see this GB as a now or never scenario with the kit. The F-111 was my favourite US aircraft when I was growing up and they would often be seen flying low and extremely fast over the house whilst enroute to 'attack' Leuchars.

 

My plan is to build the kit as an F from the 48 TFW at Lakenheath using the Afterburner decals and loaded with four LGB either from the kit or from the Hasegawa weapons set. I'll also be adding some PE from the Eduard set and plan on correcting the canopy issue with the OzMods vacform canopy (gulp!). I've bought the camo colours from the Mr Hobby Aquious range.

 

36102285-f408-4c9d-88e1-34bbefa9891e.jpg

 

20170328_151017.jpg

 

20170328_151056.jpg

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Nice choice Muzz.

Like you the F-111 was one of my favourite USAFE aircraft.

Was lucky enough to get a tour of Upper Heyford in 1988 followed by their airshow a week later.

Unlike you I haven't been able to get hold of any USAFE decals which don't need the house re-mortgaging!

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53 minutes ago, modelling minion said:

Nice choice Muzz.

Like you the F-111 was one of my favourite USAFE aircraft.

Was lucky enough to get a tour of Upper Heyford in 1988 followed by their airshow a week later.

Unlike you I haven't been able to get hold of any USAFE decals which don't need the house re-mortgaging!

,that'll  look great muzz  is that canopy intended for the academy  kit originally ,no luck with decals for me either, its going to be the a variant combat lancer  from operation linebacker 2 ,,still got a great camo job 

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1 hour ago, Hewy said:

,that'll  look great muzz  is that canopy intended for the academy  kit originally ,no luck with decals for me either, its going to be the a variant combat lancer  from operation linebacker 2 ,,still got a great camo job 

Yes, it's for the Academy kit but I've heard it is pretty easy to get it to fit the HB kit. Comparing it to the HB kit today confirms it should be pretty straight forward  (famous last words!).

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Welcome aboard Muzz, and another HB F-111, I think these may be popular in this scale as they're not a bad model.

 

I like the extras and the decals, it'll be nice to see a Gulf F-111.

 

Good luck with the build, hope it's trouble free and look forward to seeing her in the gallery.

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Been having a look at some of the components and a couple a bits are clearly going to require fixing, the one which I knew about was the intake trunking which doesn't extend all the way to the engines, that should be quite straight forward. The other issue is there appears to be a lack of a realistic exhaust trunking. I know there's an issue with the exhaust cans themselves but surprised to find big gaps in the exhaust trunking that are going to require to be fixed.

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First to remove the plastic rib that runs around the inside and serves no purpose.

 

20170401_203156.jpg

 

I then joined the rear section together before using a razor saw to cut it off. This will allow me to add the rear facing fan blades etc after the trunking has been dealt with and is smooth.

 

20170401_194226.jpg

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Thanks for the link Bob, I was aware the engines were different but I believe the difference is in the afterburner cans themselves as described in the link. My intention is to use the kits parts for these which I know are inaccurate but I'm not really willing (at the moment!) to pay £20 odd pound for the Ozmod afterburners!

 

Murray

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interesting project, and many add ons! :)

 

is there any external difference between the E and F apart form the nozzles? (and of course possible load out and markings)

 

 

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46 minutes ago, exdraken said:

interesting project, and many add ons! :)

 

is there any external difference between the E and F apart form the nozzles? (and of course possible load out and markings)

 

 

I don't believe there is, other than the F's ability to carry the Pave Tack pod in the weapons bay allowing it to drop GBU's. I do however need to check on some of the lumps and bumps ( a blade aerial, cylinderical sensor and something similar looking to a strike camera) on the lower fuselage in front of the nose wheel bay. It looks to me that the E model has them all down the centre line whilst the F possibly has at least one sensor offset, further investigation required!

 

Murray

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The parts for the front and rear undercarriage and bays with PE attached ready for a primer coat.

 

20170331_201659.jpg

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I'm in a bit of a quandary about how to have the wings positioned, I always imagined when I built this kit I'd have the wings forward with everything hanging down and all the red paint on show. However, I've recently been thinking about having the wings swept back as they are in many of the photos where the jets parked up.

 

I realised that HB might not allow the wings to be swept back and on checking tonight there is no mention of an option in the instructions. It looked like there was only going to be one way but after joining some wing parts together it would appear everything folds away with little fuss, just a few struts to cut away here and there producing a tidy looking aerodynamic wing! What to do?! :hmmm:

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17 minutes ago, Muzz said:

I'm in a bit of a quandary about how to have the wings positioned, I always imagined when I built this kit I'd have the wings forward with everything hanging down and all the red paint on show. However, I've recently been thinking about having the wings swept back as they are in many of the photos where the jets parked up.

 

I realised that HB might not allow the wings to be swept back and on checking tonight there is no mention of an option in the instructions. It looked like there was only going to be one way but after joining some wing parts together it would appear everything folds away with little fuss, just a few struts to cut away here and there producing a tidy looking aerodynamic wing! What to do?! :hmmm:

 

mmm the HB way of doing things is a wee bit strange, as you're right it isn't mentioned plus there isn't the option of having them movable. They're either fully open of swept and for some reason the holes for the pylons are already open so you are left to fill the unused ones...or in my case the whole lot!

 

Ours were never parked with the wings swept, only sometimes for show as you needed hydraulics to open them again. So you'd have to do an engine start or drag the rig out there to open them, the only time I ever saw them in the swept position was when the framies were doing checks. The USAF, not so sure but would presume they'd have followed a similar routine, pre-flight checks and weapons loading is harder with them swept.

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Good to hear that you can pretty easily clean up the wing.  I noticed that Hobby Boss doesn't mention any option- and I was going to have mine with the laundry racks deployed anyway (except the lift-kill spoilers, or whatever they called them)- but I wanted to investigate.  (Except that, having gone to the trouble of having flaps/slats deployed, they forgot the "tuck-up" on the underside of the wing leading into the flaps.)

 

Generally speaking, it seems that they were parked on the ramp with wings out (clean or "messy"), but swept if tucking into a smaller shelter.

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2 hours ago, Stephen said:

The F-111F would have to have it's wings swept when parked in an HAS

 

http://www.reinierbergsma.com/scramble/F111F-LN-DF-ST-91-07815.jpg

 

You can see an F-111F during Desert Storm parking in a HAS after a mission

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXBIn5THqd4

 

 

mmm the Americans did like to do things a bit different! Those HAS's weren't designed for something as big as the F-111! The first thing i'd be doing is opening those wings once out of the HAS, she'll have a hard job getting off otherwise!

 

Interesting in the the video, the first F-111F shown with an ALQ-131 fitted to the bomb bay door (the Pave Tack folded away) rather than behind the main gear, plus GBU-15's.

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7 hours ago, trickyrich said:

 

mmm the Americans did like to do things a bit different! Those HAS's weren't designed for something as big as the F-111! The first thing i'd be doing is opening those wings once out of the HAS, she'll have a hard job getting off otherwise!

 

Interesting in the the video, the first F-111F shown with an ALQ-131 fitted to the bomb bay door (the Pave Tack folded away) rather than behind the main gear, plus GBU-15's.

The Data Link pod for the GBU-15 replaces the ALQ-131 in that configuration requiring it to be moved to the bomb bay.

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1 hour ago, Stephen said:

The Data Link pod for the GBU-15 replaces the ALQ-131 in that configuration requiring it to be moved to the bomb bay.

 

Would an aircraft carrying GBU-15's always carry the Data Link pod or is there similar scenario as there is with buddy lasing?

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I'm not sure about that, I believe that during the famous Desert Storm mission where F-111F's used GBU-15s to knock out a pumping station that was spilling oil into the Persian Gulf the bombs were dropped from one aircraft and guided by another but I don't know if they were both carrying the guidance pod but I imagine that they would be if only for redundancy.

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