1/48 Hasegawa CF-18 751 Airshow scheme

[ALF18]

I did the anti-slip walkways on top of the LEX with pencil lead. The right-hand one has only been scribbled, and not rubbed down yet. Note that there is a gap in the walkway on each side, near the back. This is the intake door, that opens up at very high Mach numbers to alleviate over-pressure in the intake (opens at Mach 1.33, and stays open until back below Mach 1.23). On the prototype F/A-18 kit (Hasegawa 1/32), these were moulded open, which is wrong. They are never open on ground, unless maintenance has somehow tricked them into opening.

Hmmm. Not sure... looks a bit heavy. I've done typical streaks from the LEF actuators rearward, the wingfolds, and the outboard segment of the LEF actuators as well. I also did the tiny holes in the top of the aircraft just ahead of the speed brake (beside the forward-most notches for the tail braces); these are bleed air vents that can have dark wispy stains trailing aft of them, sometimes in a slight triangular shape. On ground, when the aircraft beside you powers up to get moving, you can see the dark-coloured hot air blasting straight up from these vents.

Yup. Too much. Out came the eraser, and voilà! I have also done the smoke from the gun, which is too heavy for my liking as well. It would have only been fired a few times after the airshow season, so it would have been fairly clean.

Now to do the silver metal ring around the engine nozzles (forward of them). I use a Sharpie for this; small touch-ups required in this pic. I also did the little metal mesh grids forward of the nozzles with the Sharpie.

ALF

[Shaun]

Some good weathering tips there, your making good progress.

Shaun.

[DaveJL]

Nice work mate, looks great!

Dave

[ALF18]

Here's a good example of what a typical aircraft might look like in that era. Note the grease stains at the wing folds, and where the actuators are for the LEF (both inboard and outboard actuators show minor stains). This pic was taken in June 1990, on the way back to Bagotville from Greenwood Nova Scotia, over Prince Edward Island. I was lead; I put my aircraft on autopilot and autothrottle (true airspeed hold), and told number two where to fly for the best pictures. This was before digital cameras, when in-flight photos were harder to take and more rare.

Here it is almost ready for the Future. I will lighten up the stains a bit; they look too overdone to me.

ALF

[ALF18]

Here it is lightened up a bit.

I put on a coat of Future, and while it dries I am finishing up some other bits. The landing gear doors have red borders, which I find very hard to paint with a brush. Solution? A magic marker (I use Lumocolor brand).

The nozzles are a kind of gunmetal colour. I use Humbrol enamel number 53; it's a great match. The insides of the nozzles at the time were very black. Nowadays, with ceramic inserts, they are more pale.

The aft silver bands were done with the Sharpie felt pen. Easy, no drips.

GTG - have to barbecue some burgers for supper.

ALF

[ALF18]

Short reprieve - burgers ready and in the fridge, but BBQ delayed.

Here's my technique to not lose small bits that I've worked on in advance. I kept a small container from a resin set (the F-104 cockpit in 1/32), and it works well for me. Before I started doing this, I would sometimes manage to vacuum up or drop small parts.

Decals have started to be applied. These ones are the largest, and the most spectacular. The front edges peeled slightly, because the decals are 15 years old. I had applied some decal film, and used microset and microsol, but had to apply some Future to stick the fronts on properly.

In this one, you can just make out where the front of the decals is trying to peel away. Future solved this. Note also the bleed air holes and the dirt behind them.

The sheet I had was a partial one. It did not include such decals as the leading edge tape, the arrestor hook bands, and a couple others. Luckily, I always have spares (in this case the Leading Edge Models standard CF-18 sheet).

ALF

[ALF18]

This is a really nice kit, lots of detail. In fact, some of the parts are so tiny, they can make it quite annoying. Take these tiny navigation lights, for example. Trimming them to remove the tiny bits of sprue can often lead to them flying into the land of the lost parts, never to be seen again. I suck at tiddlywinks, but I can manage to send these little parts soaring away without even trying.

Perhaps I should forget about using these parts, and instead fill in the small wedges with some kind of clear solution, then paint it like a light?

I have also installed the outboard wing pylons with the VERs, but have not yet installed the sway braces.

I've been working on the rocket pods. These come from the new Kinetic 1/48 F-5A kit, which includes 2 of these pods. They each contain 19 CRV-7 rockets (Canadian Rocket Vehicle, developed by our own indigenous aerospace agency). The tips of these rockets are blue, which is military colour-code for inert (no warhead). They can come in HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank), and some other kinds of warhead. For training, we used the inert warheads, made of depleted uranium. Each warhead weighs 10 lbs. Doesn't seem like much, but do the math, and you'll see that 10 lbs of heavy metal travelling at Mach 3 on impact (about 3,000 km/hr or 1,800 mph) will make quite an impression, pun intended. We could fire these with deadly accuracy at distances up to 9,000 feet away, and the pod of 19 would ripple fire (fractions of a second apart). This would make an oval impact zone along the flight path of the shooter, a few hundred feet long and about 50 to 80 feet wide. Even this practice warhead would penetrate quite readily some fairly thick armour; it was excellent against APCs (Armoured Personnel Carriers), small MBTs (Main Battle Tanks), and SAM TELARs (Surface to Air Missile Transport/Erector Launchers and Radars).

The lower pod has the front up; it has the tips of the rockets. The upper pod is the back, with the metal contact points to fire them electrically. Some touch-ups required to the paint.

Remember this photo? It shows the rockets on the outboard wing stations. Currently, the programming is to fire them in CCIP (Continuously Computed Impact Point) mode, which gives you the "death dot" in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzHbMQysU70

When you fire, you have a choice of single (one rocket at a time, and if you're carrying 4 pods of 19, that makes 78 pushes of the "pickle" button, and a lot of single shots). Impractical. Pods were normally set on "ripple". That's why you see R10R on the type of weapon: Rockets, 10 lb warhead, Ripple.

For wartime, we would have shot all 4 pods at once, or maybe 2 pods on one target, then 2 more on another or in a re-attack on the same target. Shooting 4 pods required the "Supersalvo" option, which was a Canadian-unique software feature, that allowed all pods to fire at once. The default program was Single pod at a time; "Salvo" on the display above would select both outboard or both inboard pods on the VERs, depending on the SMS priority sequence. Believe me, this kind of thing was a bit complex, and pilots would have to review the way the system worked to make sure they got it right for a tactical mission.

As you can see from the video, though, it was kind of fun.

Curious to know what the HUD is showing us? In this capture from the Youtube video above, you can see the speed is 500 kts CAS (Calibrated Airspeed), heading of 196 degrees Magnetic, altitude of 6,800 feet, and a dive angle of 18 degrees (the little circle with a tail and two wings is called the Velocity Vector; it shows the flight path of the aircraft). You can just make out a dark island with an ice-covered lake around it. We used island targets in the Cold Lake range for rockets, because we often started forest fires with even inert rockets, and we wanted to ensure the fire was confined to the island. The pilot is pulling 5.0 G at the moment, and he is moving the dot inside the aiming circle up to the island. The dot is the place the rockets will go if fired right now, according to the mission computer. The ticks around the outside of the aiming circle number 12; each one represents 1,000 feet of slant range to the dot's position on the ground. Currently, we are at 9,300 feet from the dot on the lake, as measured by the aircraft's radar. He will shot at about 9,000 feet (almost 2 statue miles away). Partially obscured by the aiming circle is a symbol with two small wings; this is a cue warning the pilot that he must pull up prior to the nose dropping below that, to avoid being damaged by explosions from his own weapon impacts. Lots of information, but you learn to take it all in and use it instinctively, while manoeuvring hard, finding and identifying the tiny target 2 miles away, and stabilising long enough to hose off the rockets accurately. If you were to shoot with any "G" on the aircraft, the rockets go wild.

ALF

[ALF18]

The tiny sway braces have been coloured silver using a Sharpie, and glued into place on the VERs. I've also coloured the navigation lights red and green.

Gear doors all installed. Lots of fiddly work there.

Man, these high-resolution pics are brutal! I have to touch up some paint here and there. Sigh.

The point of this was to show the landing/taxi light installed (needs white paint around the back side), and the little AOA (Angle Of Attack) indicator lights are painted with magic marker. These are functional but ignored on our aircraft; the USN/USMC use these for carrier approaches, so the safety officer on the deck can tell if the AOA is safe (centre light). There is also a small box next to the HUD in the cockpit, with the same 3 indications, but these are usually turned to fully dim or off, and nobody I know uses the indications. In the HUD, we have a nice elongated E symbol called the "energy bracket", which allows you to fly on-speed on approach (at 8.1 degrees AOA). We never calculated our approach speed; we just flew AOA. It's handy, because even in a steep turn (60 degrees bank, at 2 G) turning to a visual final approach, you can maintain safe AOA using the HUD indication, then slow airspeed as the G reduces to 1 on final.

One thing I forgot to mention about the rockets is that the pods have changed colours over the years. They used to be an olive green like mine; in later years they were light grey like in the video. I say 'were', because they are no longer used. Also, in the video, you may have seen that the pods came with nose cones installed. We called them "frangible" noses. They reduced drag during transit. For training, like my pods, we did not install the frangible noses, because the ranges were close enough that fuel consumption was not a consideration. In wartime, the pods would have been jettisoned very soon after firing to reduce drag; in peacetime we dragged them home to be reused.

Now back to the finishing touches. I have managed to lose the canopy actuator strut (it flew off into oblivion, probably to be found next week), but luckily I have another one from another kit that will have the closed-canopy version.

ALF

Edited July 29, 2013 by ALF18

[-Neu-]

Honestly, this is one of the most fantastic discussions I've seen out of you. I LOVE the photos, especially the flying shot. Awesome stuff on the build and the explanation.

Hey would my 410 squadron bird have the wing walks painted?

[Shaun]

Honestly, this is one of the most fantastic discussions I've seen out of you. I LOVE the photos, especially the flying shot. Awesome stuff on the build and the explanation.

Yes, Its nice to get an "from the cockpit view point" of the Hornet, great stuff

Shaun.

[ALF18]

Honestly, this is one of the most fantastic discussions I've seen out of you. I LOVE the photos, especially the flying shot. Awesome stuff on the build and the explanation.

Hey would my 410 squadron bird have the wing walks painted?

Thanks Neu!

If you mean the LEX walkways, yes, they would be darker than the normal top colour. Walkways can vary from quite dark (like the ones I've done on this build) to a colour that looks very much like the top grey. All CF-18s have the anti-skid coating, which can be dark or light.

Here, you see 711 with darker walkways, and 781 with lighter ones. Taken in 2006, credit Wing Photo section Bagotville. 711 was not upgraded, and was retired not long after this photo; 781 has already had ECP 583 upgrades. Also note the differences between the top and bottom camo demarcations, on the vertical stabs and on the nose. 711 has a scheme similar to this airshow jet (751), while 781 has a nose demarcation that resembles the original one straight forward from the LEX to the gun, and the tail is more of an arc (instead of the interim wavy lines on 711), similar to the original scheme, but a thicker dark grey arc.

These walkways blend into the background colour; they fade over time. Photo taken by D. Bélanger. The tail wavy grey was common in the 90s, but the nose had gone from the longer slanted grey to the straight forward to the gun style.

This is a 425 jet, on the ground in Cartierville, Quebec. This was the location of Canadair's 3rd line maintenance hangars for the CF-18, before they moved to Mirabel. Cartierville (on Montreal Island, about 3 nm East of Trudeau airport) is now closed, and has been converted to luxury townhouses and a golf course behind Bombardier's plant.

I was starting up this one, about to fly to Bagotville after conducting the test flight. I made this flight in exactly 13 minutes, from start of take-off roll to touchdown in Bagotville, over 200 nm away. En route speed was about Mach 1.5, at 37,000 feet. Burner climb to FL 370, held speed down to M 0.98 until clear of population North of Montreal, asked ATC if I could go a bit faster... after a pause where he said "your groundspeed is already 720 knots; just HOW MUCH faster do you really want to go?", I replied "about 50% faster". He said OK, and I pushed it into burner, maintaining 1.4 to 1.5 until I got to 90 nm from Bagotville, where I slowed to 0.96, and spiraled steeply down from about 25 miles, pulling 5 to 7 G in the spiral to keep the speed subsonic and not boom anyone, rolling straight onto final in the empty traffic pattern, and landing.

I was almost late for a meeting... but made it on time. Walkways are quite pronounced on this one. The canopy also has the original light copper colour on the framing, just like early F-15 Eagles. These were subsequently painted over on older ones (like this one, which I think was 716 or 711; have to check my log book), and later deliveries had grey canopy frames right from the factory. Note also how clean the gear struts are. Very typical.

ALF

Edited July 30, 2013 by ALF18

[Peter W]

Nice progress ALF and great last piece of reminiscing, almost makes you forget that you're actually building a model on this thread too.

Pete

[ALF18]

The finish line is in sight!

Here I have applied the Testors spray dull coat, and installed the ejection seat.

The rear deck behind the seat is a silver mesh, held in place by a velcro frame. I have dry-brushed some silver onto a black background.

Lost a whole modelling day - but it was worth it. Drove down to Quebec City, and visited some of the touristy stuff, including the Chateau Frontenac (pictured here) and the Citadelle, which was built from 1820 until 1855 in defence of Quebec from those nasty Americans, you see... It was a nice day spent with SWMBO and the kids.

It's a good thing I had a relaxing day. One of my nightmares with this kit is doing the HUD supports. Here you see the instruction sheet, which shows how to bend the PE and glue the two transparencies in place. Seems pretty straightforward, except for the fact that the parts are minuscule! Have a close look near the coloured arrow, and you'll see one half of the HUD support glued to one of the transparencies. I have found the best way to build this up is to glue one half on, let it dry, glue the other half, then apply the second transparency. At the very end, glue the whole HUD assembly into place atop the glare shield.

The glass where the HUD is projected upward onto the combining glasses is the silver disc here. I used a metallic pen to get the high gloss silver.

The HUD symbology is green, so the glass ends up looking like this, achieved with a magic marker.

The HUD all glued together. ARGH! A bit messy, but so small it won't show much.

ALF

[ALF18]

Here, with the front windscreen in place, is the HUD installed.

Looking nearly finished.

Now it was time to glue the rocket pods in place. I chose to attach them to the outboard sides of each VER. Depending on how the SMS programming works, and cockpit selections, this may allow both to be fired at once, or only one pod at a time. For target practice like this, we would have fired one pod, done a second pass, and fired the second one.

For the canopy brace, I have finally learned (after building about 6 of these kits) how to get it right. First step, glue the strut in place on the canopy itself, and let it dangle until it dries. Make sure it is at the right angle (left/right; it will tend to hang at the right angle when the little nub is inserted into the hole properly). After it is nice and dry, and ONLY after it's dry (don't ask me how I know this; my blood pressure is still high when I think of how I learned), glue the two rear attachment points and the bottom of the little strut in place.

The finished job looks like this:

Max has seen too many aircraft to be particularly interested in this one...

ALF

[ALF18]

I'm calling this one done. After I took the pics, I realised that I forgot to install the AOA probes and pitot tubes; I did that right after transferring the pics onto my PC.

Here it is with a friend. The lower aircraft is 790, which was the jet I ferried from Cold Lake to Bagotville, when we opened 433 Squadron with its new aircraft fresh off the assembly line and newly-delivered to Cold Lake. Note a few small differences:

-The markings are from the earlier symmetrical era, with roundels on both upper wings and the large CANADA on the side in all caps; not the Post-Office logo style Canada on 751.

-The aircraft is configured with a centreline tank, which was the normal training config until we realised that the fatigue life accumulation on the airframes was through the roof, and the fleet would not last long at that rate. We started flying in 2 tanks for training, which reduced wing flexure, and also meant it took longer to accelerate and pull more G, having the net effect of pulling less G on a typical flight profile.

-The grey demarcation lines are the early style, and there is no squadron logo.

-There are no LEX fences installed; this was 1988, before they designed and implemented the fix a year later for tail vibration/fatigue.

More pics in the finished build thread. I'm glad this one is done!

ALF

[Peter W]

Nice looking scheme ALF and still plenty of time to start another one before the group build ends.

Pete

[emvar]

Alf,

Very Nice build..... one that hasn't seen too many builds as far as specials go. Oh sometimes I wish I had made that choice to join, instead of the Civie stuff I do now.

Cheers

Emil

[Shaun]

The canopy also has the original light copper colour on the framing, just like early F-15 Eagles. These were subsequently painted over on older ones (like this one, which I think was 716 or 711; have to check my log book), and later deliveries had grey canopy frames right from the factory. Note also how clean the gear struts are. Very typical.

ALF

I noticed this myself, what shade of gray would you think matches the current sealant? US Navy Hornets appear show both light and dark gray seal edges

Your build looks good, nice to see you reached the finish line

Shaun.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Shaun

[ALF18]

I noticed this myself, what shade of gray would you think matches the current sealant? US Navy Hornets appear show both light and dark gray seal edges

Your build looks good, nice to see you reached the finish line

Shaun.

Shaun

The grey shade should be the same as the surrounding aircraft structure, so in the case of a Canadian Hornet it would be the upper grey (FS 35237) colour. For USN, I would match the skin next to the canopy.

Thanks for stopping by!

ALF

[Barneydhc82]

Very nice build ALF.

Barney

[-Neu-]

Awesome!

I'm calling this one done. After I took the pics, I realised that I forgot to install the AOA probes and pitot tubes; I did that right after transferring the pics onto my PC.

Here it is with a friend. The lower aircraft is 790, which was the jet I ferried from Cold Lake to Bagotville, when we opened 433 Squadron with its new aircraft fresh off the assembly line and newly-delivered to Cold Lake.

Did it have the new car smell to it?

[ALF18]

Nice looking scheme ALF and still plenty of time to start another one before the group build ends.

Pete

Pete

I would dearly love to do another Hornet, but two things are stopping me:

1. the only kits I have left in my stash are 1/32 scale; I want to do them justice and 1 month is insufficient for that

2. I have just started back to work for the fall academic session; my focus in the next few weeks is in kicking off the year with some semblance of organisation and competence...

Thanks for your support thoughout the build.

Awesome!

Did it have the new car smell to it?

Neu

Thanks dude. Yup, the new ones definitely had a new smell to them. The singles never smelled like vomit (like the back seats of the duals sometimes did), but when we first got them they were definitely pristine. Leather, cloth, oil... not the same as a car smell, but certainly distinctively new.

When I started flying the aircraft, we were still receiving the last new ones. While I was on course at 410 in Cold Lake, we received 783 through 792, which all became 433's aircraft (my first operational squadron). They showed up with about 10 flying hours on them, ferried from St Louis by company test pilots. We flew them during the course, and when I ferried 790 to Bagotville, it had about 50 hours on it.

Funny anecdote about the deliveries. All Hornets going to Canada-based units were delivered to Cold Lake (through 410 squadron, then to the op sqn). Those going to Baden, Germany, were sent straight there, and delivered in Europe. The reason had to do with sales taxes. The government, in its infinite wisdom, charged itself sales tax on the aircraft, unless they were accepted out of the country. That allowed us to save some budget on the ones delivered to Baden. We all shook our heads at the idiocy of a government that would reduced its own acquisition budget by charging itself sales taxes.

ALF

[Jabba]

A very nice build there.

[nimrod54]

Great stuff Alf what a fantastic looking scheme. I really like these Canadian display aircraft and perhaps it is due to the type being a great canvas for them.