1/144 F117 Stealth Fighter Intakes help

[Ace From Outer Space]

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen,

I've been pottering about with the Revell F117 Stealth Fighter kit in 1/144 and am about to start the build. The kit is OK, nothing special and to my not very discerning eyes seems accurate enough for me. The only really nasty innacuracy I can see, apart from the sensor or whatever it is below the cockpit glass are the intakes.

Revell, bless them, have provided two perfectly formed plastic waffles to cover the intakes with. While they may keep the aircrew fed and happy, they do nothing for the kit. On the real aircraft the intakes seem to be some sort of mesh. Has anyone got any quick and easy ideas to replicate these in the completely mahoosive scale of 1/144...

I can scratchbuild, or even try some PE.... Open to any suggestions!

Cheers everyone,

Viv

[sroubos]

You can buy some premium tea bags (e.g. Tea Pigs), these are made out of a plastic mesh that would replicate the effect quite well I think.

Is Revell's 117 still the same tooling? I remember building it when I was ten. It's a weird thing, based on the first vague photos released of the plane and as such it did just about everything wrong. The most glaring error is the exhausts which are on top of the fuselage rather than at the back, which sort of makes you wonder how those guys at Revell thought it would fly.

Edited November 5, 2015 by sroubos

[Ace From Outer Space]

Hi Sroubos,

Thank you very much for the tip. I have some lemon and ginger Tea Pigs downstairs so I will try using their mesh. With a teeny bit of evergreen strip I should be able to make some passable intakes. Excellent idea sir, thank you very much for the suggestion.

I dont know if its the original tooling, but i would suspect it is. Still, the details like the cockpit are well enough moulded and hwve some fine details I may try to highlight with a brush as opposed to using the decals supplied with the kit.

Cheers,

Viv