F-16I Sufa - Kinetic 1/72 - An IDF Storm

[Dennis_C]

Hi everyone,

 

Here is one more project I completed back in 2020 somewhere mid-year but it took me a while to post an RFI report here.

This time this is Kinetic's F-16I Sufa naturally in IDF colours:

 

 

 

I do have a lot of interest in IDF aircraft due to their operational history but more importantly because the Israeli were always trying to sqeeze maximum of the assets they were obtaining which resulted in aircrafts' versions with the ultimate characteristics. F-16I modification of the famous Viper is a perfect example of that approach. 

 

 

Construction was not very complex. The mainframe structure has just two parts - full upper fuselage from radome to airbrakes that is molded together with wings and lower fuselage. However then you get a lot of parts to create a standard Viper - multi-part intake, main gear bay, rudder and stabilisers, cockpit tub, etc, as well as some Sufa specific parts such as ventral spine, conformal tanks, various antennae, pylons and so on. Fit was good to great although frontal engine section that creates intake with front gear bay requires dry-fitting. The nastiest part being intake to lower fuselage joint where you would probably need to make a thin plastic insert to close the gap between the two subassemblies.

Another area to watch out is the internal intake side. Intake is made of five parts which creates joints where real aircraft has the smooth curved surface. At the same time the intake is very deep and needs to be painted somehow if assembled and sanded unpainted. So I chose to paint parts prior to assembly and sacrifice smooth surface in favour of better and easier paintjob. 

 

 

I did apply some aftermarket parts including Eduard cockpit PE set and Aires resin exhaust. Original exhaust is quite simplistic so the model definitely benefits from the resin option. Lastly Master pitot and angle of attack probes were used. 

Kit decals are applied. They are Cartograph printed so are of exquisite quality and include abundant quantity of technical stencils.

 

 

Weapons are all coming from the aircraft set which contains a great range of IDF armament including Python 4 AAMs, Rafael Spice guided bombs, Delilah and Popeye cruise missiles, as well as a range of navigation and targeting pods all with a set of decals. The only thing that the kit unfortunately lacks is the standard F-16 centerline fuel tank. I hanged the AN/AXQ-14 targeting pod instead of the centerline tank although I'm still not fully sure if that pod is needed with weapon combination that I've chosen. 

 

 

Paints used are Hobby Color H310, H312, H313 for top surface, vallejo 70.990 for the lower side and lightened H305 for the radome and other unpainted plastic covers. The green H312 needs attention as it matches to the green colour used by IDF in the post Six-Day war period but not to the contemporary green. To bring H312 to the lighter modern green tone you need to mix it with white at about 1:1 proportion. 

 

 

As you can see the Kinteic kit converts to a very nice model with a lot of details and very well representing this interesting Viper variant. However the worst thing about the kit is the kit's instruction... The manufacturer decided that the true modeller should be working with references that is why:

 - no decal guide for weaponry is provided

 - no paint guide for weaponry is given either

 - some mainframe parts are not indicated on the assembly steps while some are indicated wrongly

 - paint references are sporadic

 - the black and white colour profiles do not show demarcation line between the green and tan areas

 - not all stencils are indicated on the stencil placement guide

...so you need to work with walkarounds A LOT!!!

 

 

This superarmed beast took quite a bit of my time on and off during more than a year. But glad it turned out nicely and I must say it looks really cool on the shelf with its bright colours and serious armament under the wings. Hope you like it too

 

Kind regards,

 

Dennis

Edited January 21, 2021 by Dennis_C

[Sky Keg]

Very nice Dennis.  It is clear that this was a labor intensive kit to build.  Good job!!!!! 

 

Mike

[SAT69]

That's really great work you've done!

[swralph]

Looks great Dennis.😀

[112 Squadron]

Beautiful! I love that you have given so much attention to all the small details. 👍

Edited January 21, 2021 by 112 Squadron

[binbrook87]

Wow i love that! Looks absolutely stunning. I built the same kit last year and loved it....apart from the missing bits of information in the instructions like you said. Very frustrating! You do need some other references. I also found putting all that ordnance on a bit time consuming and tedious...but it makes the aircraft what it is. It really is a serious mean looking piece of kit when finished isn't it? Thanks for sharing your build and detailed review. I do fancy building another....but the Greek one. 😁

[RMCS]

Superb 

[Vultures1]

Really nice work Dennis!  The camo scheme is beautifully executed and I find something really appealing about a heavily loaded F-16I - well done

[Dennis_C]

Hi folks, 

 

Thanks a lot for supportive comments!

 

5 hours ago, binbrook87 said:

I built the same kit last year and loved it....apart from the missing bits of information in the instructions like you said. Very frustrating! You do need some other references. I also found putting all that ordnance on a bit time consuming and tedious...but it makes the aircraft what it is. It really is a serious mean looking piece of kit when finished isn't it?

Yeah. The missing information from the instruction sheet is disappointing. Luckily this is a brand new aircraft so I was able to find detailed walkarounds. As to weaponry set - I used an internet copy of the instruction for IDF weapon set by Kinetic which I guess contains same plastic parts and decals.

Ordnance arsenal - that's the maximum I ever hung on my model. 11 items including weapons, pods and tanks! It's like building a separate kit. Rafael Spice bombs have 12 guiding surfaces (not sure what the right English term for the small wings) and all of them are separate details without good locating pins and need to be installed at varying angles. Very fragile piece in reality

[F-32]

Beautiful build, the paint work looks spot on

[Dennis_C]

14 hours ago, F-32 said:

Beautiful build, the paint work looks spot on

Thank you! Yeah - the three tone camo was fun to paint (and add various antenna covers of grey colour).

In fact I had to repaint green as although I figured it needs to be lighter I did not managed it light enough on the first run, so was remasking the whole thing to respray green. Crazy job!