Rich F

Thanks for the kind comments guys progress is being made, just not quite as fast I would have hoped. I keep getting side tracked by small details that's stopping my from actually constructing the kit! Onto what has been slowing me down! Forward cooling vents have had the intakes thinned down and added. The splitter plates have been drilled out on the rear face and vents added. Boarding ladder built although its a bit bent out of shape and still needs the handrail adding. Rivet detail added to the wings. Tail has had the same treatment and some patch plates added to the base of the tail like this one! The fuel dump vent had been snapped off in the and wasn't in the box, Quickboost came to the rescue with a resin vent but it needed modifying for a Brit F-4 as these were shorter and angled up with a slight V profile at the rear of it. I think I might just have got away with it, its just pinned it at the moment as I don't want a to snap it off again! Also started to build a recess for the tail brake chute as Eduard just provide a plate so there is a gaping hole behind it that isn't that convincing. These arrived a few days ago, they are a massive improvement over the kit supplied offerings, detail is superb, more of that next time Hopefully I can get the wings on soon. Cheers

Its been awhile since my last update but progress has been made, I lost my mojo over the Christmas holidays but its back now! Cockpit and seats ready for inspection, pit was finished with Xtracolor Admiralty Grey lightened with a touch of white and weathered with various washes.. A snug fit but got it to fit eventually. Spine seams cleaned up and panel lines and rivet detail restored. A few details added to the tail, notably anti-collision light replicated with a bit red styrene, quickboost ECM fairing added and master brass pitots added. Rudder has been cut out and will be slightly offset once i have got rid off those nasty sink marks! Hopefully the next update wont take as long as this one. Cheers

Stunning! One to be proud of!!

I do have a FG.1 in the stash. I will build it one day, the phantom did look good in RN colours Thanks Heloman I thought that was the case, Thanks for the clarification Rhino Thanks Woody, I wish you had started yours first then you could tell me how to overcome Aires vague instructions on fitting the cockpit, more of that later! Not as much progress as I'd hoped for but it is progress. Finally got the aux intakes details, engine bits added and doors painted. For what little will be seen it should be almost convincing, beats the black hole that was there before! Also note the belly strap added from flying leathernecks. I need to add some raised rivet detail later. Also started working on the nose gear bay, I dont have a clear photo of the fgr.2 bay so most of it is what i imagine it would look like. I cant hold fitting the Aires pit off much longer and i have managed to grind, scrape and sand it into submission. However i see a problem ahead... Look closely and you will see that the front coaming of the Aires pit does not line up with the kit, not sure if anyone else has had this problem, i was thinking of adding a small 'shim' at the rear with the same profile of the rear bulkhead. If anyone has any better ideas I'm all ears?

I've had this one on my 'to do' list for quite a while now, years if not decades infact. It all started back in in the late 80's when i was a spotty ATC cadet on a summer camp to RAF Leuchars during which time we visited the Phantom squadrons, as much as i liked the tremblers and the fighting cocks jets, I just loved the Blue tail of one of the 228sqn (64sqn) OCU jets. For a small fee, I managed to grab myself a 'Squadron print' of XT900 whilst on said visit, which still hangs proudly in my man cave, although it has faded a bit over the years! So no prizes for which squadron I'm doing, although still undecided on the actual jet I'm going to. As far as i know there were only 2 jets that had the blue tail XT900 (CO) and XT895 (CJ) if anyone knows different please dont be afraid to shout up and correct me! On to the bits and pieces I'll be using for this project, this is what i have but i may add more as i go along. I have a couple more FGR.2's in the stash so none of it will go to waste! The verlinden book is a must for brit phantom's and Robbie Shaw's book has a number of 228 jet photo's which will come in very handy during the weathering stage... I'll be using the xtradecal sheets for the squadron markings and Airdoc for the stencils, I need to be careful here as these are for Germany based sqn's. I dont think there is a massive difference though. So I've actually made a start and shock horror I didnt start with the cockpit, I'm putting that off due to all the horror stories I've heard about trying to shoehorn the Aires cockpit into the Hasegawa kit. Instead i started with the underside aux intakes which i was inspired to scratch build by watching the incredible build by Anthony in NZ. If you havent seen his Phantom build i highly recommend taking a peek, to say its the holy grail of Brit phantom scale modelling would be an understatement! My efforts are somewhat less impressive but you get the general idea and to be honest i doubt much of it will be seen but i had fun doing it anyway! I used some styrene card and various size strips, rivet detail was archer decals. Once i was happy i primed it with Alclad primer and painted with an appropriate Mr Color green... I have some old 1/72 Fujimi F-14 TF30 engine halves that i am planned to use to fill the voids, hopefully these should look convincing once painted and in place. Thats all for now.

I especially love the weathering you've applied, looks well used and very convincing. Plus, who doesn't love Griffin engined Seafires! Great job! 👍

Thanks for your reponses guys, I think i should have rephrased my statement 'not the best' as i was talking about the photo's not the model. Overall i am quite pleased with it although there's always room for improvement. Missing the static dischargers springs to mind but thats another story! I dont think the lighting does it justice and i forgot to add the boarding ladder to the pics I'll try and take some better pics this weekend if i get time. Thanks again.

Hi All, I finished this one a few weeks ago and have finally got around to posting some pics, admittedly the photo's aren't not the best but you get the general idea. I'll take some better pics when i get time For those interested WIP is here Thanks for looking.

Very nice, weathering is very convincing!👍

Getting closer to finishing this one now. Gloss coat on, I purchased a bottle of Mr Color Super Clear III UV gloss coat after hearing good things about it. I thinned it with some Mr Color Leveling thinner about 50/50. I wasn't disappointed, this is by far the best gloss coat i have ever used. Next up was the decals for the Viper, I used the Experts choice decals first the for the unit markings which gave no trouble except for the tail band is a little short. For the rest of the markings i have an Astra Decals F-16 Aviano sheet which has markings for 2 aircraft, these laid down beautifully with some Mr Mark Setter and Softner. The short tail band will get a shot of custom mixed red paint at the back. I couldn't resist hanging the wing tanks, i used a mix of high and low viz markings for these to add interest. I will paint the filler caps as the decals for these were a tad to big. I wasnt happy with the Hasegawa GBU-12's and 16 so i liberated some from my F-14d kit, much better. Decals for the underwing stores came from a varity of ordance sheets i have. I'm not that happy with the AMRAAM's either but i think i will have to live with these! Next up my favourite bit, the weathering and a spot of detail painting. I'm working away for the next couple of weeks so this will have to wait. Cheers

Happy new year folks! Well didn't make my end of year deadline did I? Probably because most of the holiday i was suffering with a nasty case of man-flu and could hardly pull myself from my bed let alone sit in front of the modelling bench! Anyway once i recovered sufficiently I managed to get the Gunship grey on, I used H305 Mr Hobby Aqueous and added about 25% H5 Blue to give it that distinctive blue hue that you see on F-16's. I layed down a coat that covered most of the the black undercoat. Next up i used a mottle mask with a lightened base coat followed by the same process but a darker base coat. I than went over this again with a highly thinned base colour to blend the mottling. I then used a slightly lightened base coat to the center of the panels to give it a slightly sun bleached effect, i really hope this shows up once i have a gloos coat as it is quite suttle. The radome was painted using H317 and once again i used the mottling effect technique. The end is in sight now, honest! Cheers

Sadly not a lot of progress since my last update, although i have been working the odd hour or two when i get the time. Finally got some paint on it, started with a black base using Mr finishing surfacer 1500. Then i hit a snag, my compressor decided to rapidly decompress and spurt rusty water everywhere, upon further investigation i found a nice little hole around a weld line at the bottom of the tank. 🙄 So after investing in a new compressor i was back in business (note to self to remember to drain the tank regularly) I've started on the neutral grey with the usual mottling first... I've also made a start with the Aires Exhaust. The 125th FS uses the block 42 with the new(ish) F100-PW-229 engine so this motor has carbon fibre exhaust petals so i decided to purchase the Hiroboy carbon fibre decal sheet, I'll let you know how this turns out. Also built the Plus model boarding ladder, should look the business after a lick of paint. Also had a play with the LANTIRN pod, using some holographic film i stuck to the target tracker window, not sure why i did this as i plan to have the seeker head in the stowed position so it will be hidden, at least i know its there! Really hoping to have this finished before the end of the year, before you ask i do mean 2022 😄 Cheers

Getting there slowly is where I'm at presently! Almost ready for paint now unless anything else crops up, I have a couple of sink marks and scratches to deal with then i should be ready to get the airbrush out. I had the Daco reinforcement plates which are good if a little thick, I started with the RAM plates on the side of the rear fuselage (blue plates) which were a little off size wise, so i trimmed them a little. When i came to apply the plates on the top of the fuselage i found that they didn't quite fit in any direction,I can only think they are meant for the Hasegawa kit. So i ordered the Furball F-16 reinforcement plates, much better even if i had to wait a week for Mr postman to put them through the letter box! Whist i was waiting for the plates to arrive i had a play with the pylons and added the sway braces which are missing from the otherwise excellent kit pylons. These were made from some 0.3mm tubing and some very small plastic discs which i punched out. I was going to have 2x gbu-12's (500lb LGB)under one wing and 2x gbu-38's (500lb GPS) under the other mounted on the F-16 type TER's but looking at photos on the net i can only see multiple gbu-38's mounted on F/A-18 style BRU's (bomb rack units) which i dont have. So i decided to go with a single gbu-16 (1000lb LGB) instead of the gbu-38's. All bombs are from the Hasegawa weapons set, As you can see I've started to modify them a bit, I've drilled out the fins on the seaker heads and will 'droop' which is a characteristic of them when they are sat doing nothing on the ground. The eagle eyed amongst you will also notice i have added a protective cover to one of the bombs, this is easily made with a bit of styrene tubing carefully drilled out to fit then a cap on the end, effective and hides the solid plastic seeker head which should be clear yellow. This the loadout I'm going to go with, any Viper experts please shout up if you see any glaring errors? Hopefully next update will show a coat of paint

Cheers Pappy, the 2 resin pods i have are Litening pods not Lantirn. Looking at the pic i posted of 88-0547 getting airborne from Incirlik AB it looks like a Lantirn pod too me. Litening pods have a vertical intake on the rear while Lantirn pods have a diagonal intake. The Dr Pepper pod is not great as detail is soft and has a mold seam running the length of it, the Eduard brassin pod is much better, this would be the one i would use if i could find a pic of a 138th FW bird carrying one.

Its been a while since my last update and managed to move forward with it although not as much as i hoped. Most of the big bits are together now, the nosecone and the intake assembly are not glued as I'm going to paint these first before sticking them in place. Cockpit deck has been painted and weathered. I didn't follow the instructions regarding the main undercarriage bays as i didn't want to install the undercarriage legs yet for ease with painting and knowing me i would probably knock them off! I may have to do some fettling to get the legs to fit, I'll do a test fit once i have the intake assembly in place. I painted the undercarriage bays and legs with Mr color off white as i think it looks less stark than pure white. Brake lines added with copper wire and chrome foil added to the upper struts. Looking at the close-ups you can still see the seamlines and a sinkmark! I thought i had got rid of those, my eyes ain't what they used to be! The kit has 2 sets for the Canopy, a clear and 'smoked' one. I used the smoked front section and the clear rear section as I've seen a few vipers with this configuration. Canopy seams removed with a sharp blade then polished and dipped in Klear and masked, canopy frame PE added and grab handles made from stretched sprue as i think these will look better than the 2D offerings from eduard. Started to play around with the Lantirn pod, its from Hasegawa, not the best but it should work. Still lots to do, next up I'll add the reinforcement plates from Daco to the upper fuselage, then hopefully i can start painting soon and think about the loadout, more on that next time! Cheers