Search the Community

Hey All, This build was a spiritual successor to my Hobby-Boss F-14D which I also hugely enjoyed building. Both builds are on different continents now. The build was mostly OOB with the exception of basic riveting (to justify the weathering) and rotating of the Nose Landing Gear (probably not technically accurate for a parked aircraft but adds a dash of dynamism). The HARM missile was borrowed from the Academy F-16CJ kit, and the pilot from the Hasegawa F-18D kit. Missiles all carry the blue ribbon of non-lethality Painted using Vallejo Model Air and Alclad II. Weathered with oil paints and a hog brush. The base was made from styrene sheet, acrylics paints and salt weathering. The aircraft was supposed to represent the more grittier F-18F seen aboard the Carl Vinson, but I destroyed the decal along with a "NAVY" decal on the starboard side, so went with the Abraham Lincon. The Pilot figure was from the Hasegawa F-18D kit. Anti corrosion paint touch-ups on the tails Some forced perspective with the excellent Trumpeter 1/144 F-14D kit. Thanks for watching and happy modeling! Cheers, Alex.

This is F/A-18F Academy 1/72 (12535) Originally VFA-103 Jolly Rogers CAG plane, ended up as VFA-32 plane (Jasmine model decals 172006). Here are some notes regarding this kit from my work in progress topic about this kit: Academy should avoid making these half breed kits. It should be either snap kit or kit for modellers. So many fine details with almost perfect fitting but with design flaws related to snap kit "features".  Decals in this kit are USELESS if you want accomplish even humble, decent results. They are simply put, so bad, color is off, they don't stick, they can not be softened, they are too shiny... If you intend to buy this kit, simply count on getting another decals. 1. They were modelling parts in such way that they can be assembled without a glue (this includes canopy). I assume most of us here are using glue so they were targeting another market with this feature. There is also a cost for this, each part must have pins to be fitted into another part and some of these are seriously affecting the reality of model. For example, I had to scrape two large extensions from aim-9x missiles and fill two large holes intended for these extensions on wing tips. Leaving these parts in original form simply looks bad. Doors hinges are too big and toy like. The list goes on.. 2. This kit comes with multi colored parts (MCP). Again feature targeting another market as model painting is the crucial part of this hobby (at least I feel this way). Most of manual does not include color references because of this idea. This was actually changed with next iteration of this mold (F/A-18E, 12547), color references are now included in manual, there are no stickers (which is now bad for those who are not painting model and don't want to use decals) and decals are now Cartograf (there is no Cartograf logo on decals sheet but there is logo on box and the decals don't have that bluish tone and look very good so I assume they were printed by Cartograf. 3. This kit comes with stickers and useless decals. We don't use stickers here and included decals are so bad that it's hard to believe someone from Academy did not try these on actual model before distributing this kit. My point was: Academy should pack and mark these kits as easy fit, painting not required, decaling not required, MCP kits with stickers and make another version of same mold intended for modellers and distributed with good decals. This would be an easy task for them and with current details of this kit would probably make best super hornet (E/F/G) 1/72 version out there.

Blimey, I don't know what's up with me two completed models in less than a month. I picked up hasegawas diamondbacks history boxing in the modeller.com sale, and seeing as im partial to a cag scheme i promptly started on the ride of captain Michael Mcnellis. After following Hase's colour call outs the top surface seemed way to dark so a mist of fs36375 was shot over it to tone down and give what i think is an acceptable weathering down of the scheme. Drop tanks are in the paint stage but most people know what a Rhino looks like with gas bags on. comments welcomed.