Revell 1/32 A-16 Fighting Falcon

[Speedman]

This build has only taken 22 years Build thread.

Here's a rundown of some of the "Whif" features...

Markings: 184 FS "Flying Razorbacks" Fort Smith, Arkansas, #07-4276. Originally flying the F-16C, the Razorbacks were due to convert to the A-10 in 2007 but in it was decided that a replacement was needed for the venerable "Warthog" and Lockheed Martin were commissioned to create a suitable replacement.

Airframe: The new aircraft had to be cost effective and ready for service ASAP. As there had already been several studies into creating a ground attack version of the F-16, Lockheed Martin were keen to follow up on this as R&D would be far less costly than designing an aircraft from scratch. LM simply took the existing airframe design and applied new materials that were not available during the production of the USAF's F-16s. New carbon-carbon wing spars and centre fuselage sections and carbon fibre wings were designed to give the A-16 unparalleled strength for high G manoeuvres and greater load carrying capacity. The centreline stores position was at last capable of effectively mounting an external gun pod, something that plagued A-16 trials in the 80s & 90s.

Thrust vectoring: A full 360° vectoring nozzle based on technology trialled in the F-16MATV demonstrator was designed and installed on the General Electric F110-GE-132 turbofan with a maximum thrust of 32,500lb.

Canards: Both the F-16 CCV & F-16 AFTI programs investigated advanced manoeuvrability using canards, LM redesigned them to enhance performance further. Computer simulation showed that such a high AOA could be achieved in conjunction with thrust vectoring that the front section of the airframe would disrupt airflow to the engine intake, a problem faced by Rockwell on the X-31 which also featured canards and thrust vectoring. LM looked at Rockwell's solution and extended the A-16s intake by 2' to place it right under the pilot overcome the problem.

Attack & detection systems: The AN-APG-80 radar can perform air-to-air, search-and-track, air-to-ground targeting and aircraft terrain-following functions simultaneously and for multiple targets giving the A-16 superb low level attack capabilities. In addition to this the A-16 is fitted with integrated FLIR, AN/ASQ-213 HARM targeting system and 360° RWR. This eliminated any need for external LANTIRN & HTS pods.

Avionics spine: Housing advanced defensive and attack avionics the end of the spine houses a rear facing radar with both air-to-air and air-to-ground capability.

Wingtip rails: The new high strength wings allowed installation of twin "over & under" rails to carry the new AIM-157A "Rattler" short range radar guided high manoeuvrability missile.

Stores positions: With the twin wingtip rails doubling the A-16s basic air-to-air capability, LM saw no need to increase wing size to carry extra air-to-ground stores. They kept the existing pylon arrangement but upgraded the systems to allow a greater variation of weapons to be installed.

40mm gun pod: Developed specifically for the A-16, this four barrelled 40mm gatling was designed to give the A-16 fantastic anti-armour capabilities using the A-16s unique off-axis manoeuvring for precision strafing.

[fallmonk]

Fantastic job there

[trickyrich]

well done very nice, I actually had to read the details as I couldn't see what the "whiffy" bits were straight away. Ok that's just down to old age and working 16 days straight (only 5 to go!! ).

I like it a lot...that said I have a Hasegawa version, same scale that is probably in the same condition, though 10 years earlier again, that never quite got finished! My excuse......I joined the air force, so got to play with big toys, plus now where to build models on base!

The finish you've got is excellent, and the whole thing just looks so "real" which is the sign of a great Whiffy!!!