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F-16C Repair Panel Question


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I'm trying to build the beautiful worn bird in the photo below for my Vermont ANG collection.

Notice on the right wing, outer panel, trailing edge. It's a replaced panel which is said to be painted in 36375.

As this is the color the underside of F-16's used to be painted in, what are the chances this is a panel from a left wing turned over, and the underside of this panel is the darker 36118 Gunship Gray?

 

vzxuTu6.jpg

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Yes, that occurred to me as well, agreed!

So the question remains, if it seems logical that the underside of said panel might be Gunship Gray, as the only reason I can think of for a 36375 panel would be an F-16's undersides before going to two-tone gray.

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I think it's a repair job repainted with the wrong color, as far as I can see, the static dischargers are on the right place.

 

Joseph

 

Edited by beppe
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Earlier USAF F-16 scheme was up top 36118 over the rear and wings, nose/cockpit section would be 36370. Underside would be 36375 overall the underside. Scheme moved later to an all 36370 underside. 

 

The panel in question does look quite like 36375 (it matches the forward panel colour of the port inner pylon drop tank.)Judging by the colour difference between the rear half of the drop tank (36370) the nose are and replacement wing panel look to be 36375. There's a slight blue tint to this grey which suggest 36375 is the nearest shade to the panel to my eye. Suspect this has been used and an ad-hoc colour that's been available to the Vermont ANG maintainers while maintaining the aircraft whilst on ops. The static wicks on the trailing edge are correctly spaced so I doubt this is an inverted port wing panel. 

 

Really interested to see your weathering ideas and process to reproduce this (literally) battle worn colour scheme. 

Edited by philbrad
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It's possible that's the color the part is painted at the factory, and it's up to the unit to repaint it once it is installed and they get a chance.

 

Regards,

Murph

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Well the question would be, is this a flight control surface? Aileron? If it is, is it interchangeable between sides. If it is interchangeable, it could be possible that it came from a stored machine somewhere.

 

Cheers

H.

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OK, then it will likely be a structural panel, that is interchangeable, thus likely only covering the surface you see. thus the other side should remain the 36270 normally seen, unless there was damage, and both top and bottom part of the panel was changed. I don't fly or fix F-16's but I have played with them, if a while ago, and those were 26270 all over at the time...

 

Cheers

H.

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5 hours ago, Winnie said:

OK, then it will likely be a structural panel, that is interchangeable, thus likely only covering the surface you see. thus the other side should remain the 36270 normally seen, unless there was damage, and both top and bottom part of the panel was changed. I don't fly or fix F-16's but I have played with them, if a while ago, and those were 26270 all over at the time...

 

Cheers

H.

I think 36118 would be the color normally seen at that spot.

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6 hours ago, Muzz said:

Has the front of the external tank on the port wing been touched up with the same colour also?

 

No, supposedly it's two tank halves put together, the front half from the earlier 36375 years and the rear half from the later 36270. Then crudely sprayed 36270 touchup around the fill areas. Makes a neat effect!

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1 hour ago, Tony Oliver said:

Also - looks like there has been a canopy swap. 

Demarcations don’t match up.

A very interesting plane! 

:) 

Yep, the canopy swap was known.

The unique features here are the replaced canopy, the repainted darker area on the fuselage, the mismatched and touched up wing tank halves and the bizarre light panel on the starboard wing.

Can't wait to start painting; still working on the structural build. Not easy to do a Block 25 C model in 1/72.

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Thought about the Tamiya, yes , but the trouble is the intake; can't just graft any old small mouth intake onto any old Viper kit.  Also little extras like the number of chaff dispensers, etc....

So I took the Revell/Germany, and really reworked the inside of the poorly designed intake to make it look okay. Got a Hasegawa C tail, added the AIM-120 rails from the Hasegawa weapons sets, TER-9A under the starboard wing from an old Hasegawa F-16, added a MFD to the cockpit panel, and basically good to go. :)

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  • 1 month later...

Could you not just use the Hasegawa F-16N kit with some home made LE RHAW? It comes with NSI intake and P&W exhaust. 

Also it looks like the wing tip launchers are different colours.

 

I have these markings as well but I hadn't seen this photo prior to my planning of which aircraft to do.

 

Cheers

Phil

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