Vipers rule OK

[Rich F]

 After a long hiatus from the bench I've finally got round to pulling a kit off the shelf and blowing the dust off.

 

Yes I know! I can already here the 'Not another F-16' comments.  I like them, so there! 😜

 

I've heard good thing about this kit lets hope it delivers as promised..

Here's what I've got to work with..

 

 

Reference material...

 

 

I'm going with a Oklahoma ANG bird from the 138FW based at Tulsa,they are equipped with BLK 42 jets. I'm probably going to do an OIF jet as they were deployed to Balad AB, Iraq, in 2008 or a Northern Watch bird similar to the one below using experts choice decals...

 

 

I started on it a couple of weeks ago and have added a few details to the undercarriage bays and the cockpit, nothing to drastic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully I will update as soon as I've finished the cockpit, looking forward to adding the Quinta decals, never used them before but they look nice and certainly better than my painting skills! 

 

Cheers

 

Rich

[Rich F]

Morning All, cockpit is finally finished

 

It was my first time using Quinta cockpit decals, i was very impressed. I took others advice and used a little PVA to settle them down. Other than that i had to play around a little with the cockpit grey paint to get a close match to the decals with wasn't to much hassle. Paints were a mix of GSI and Tamiya Acryllics.

I used an aires ACES II seat with was too wide for tamiya's cockpit tub so i have to sand the seat pan detail away to get it to fit. I was going to fit the bull horns to the headrest but i think it is the newer type that has the fold down sensors. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

Looking at the coaming and HUD, i still have little more work to do but will work on that once I've got most off the build out of the way.

The instrument panel and seat are just dry fitted for the moment until i start building the airframe. Hopefully I won't have any drama's and will be back soon with an update.

 

Cheers

 

[Vultures1]

That cockpit looks fantastic!  Great work

[Pappy]

G'day Rich,

 

Lovely work.

 

If you are intending to portray the modified ACES seat you may want to paint the head box black. Check your refs, but the Oklahoma ANG bird you showed a pic of has the black headbox as well. I believe it was for NVG compatibility,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Edited January 6, 2023 by Pappy

[Rich F]

5 hours ago, Pappy said:

G'day Rich,

 

Lovely work.

 

If you are intending to portray the modified ACES seat you may want to paint the head box black. Checj your refs, but5 the Oklahoma ANG bird you showed a pic of has the black headbox as well. I believe it was for NVG compatibility,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Thanks Pappy, well spotted on the head box. 👍

 

Still not sure which jet I'm doing or what timeframe but I'll definitely bear it in mind when decide.

 

Cheers

[Rich F]

 Its been a while since my last update and managed to move forward with it although not as much as i hoped.

Most of the big bits are together now, the nosecone and the intake assembly are not glued as I'm going to paint these first before sticking them in place. 

 

Cockpit deck has been painted and weathered.

 

I didn't follow the instructions regarding the main undercarriage bays as i didn't  want to install the undercarriage legs yet for ease with painting and knowing me i would probably knock them off! I may have to do some fettling to get the legs to fit, I'll do a test fit once i have the intake assembly in place.

 

 

 

I painted the undercarriage bays and legs with Mr color off white as i think it looks less stark than pure white.  Brake lines added with copper wire and chrome foil added to the upper struts. Looking at the close-ups you can still see the seamlines and a sinkmark! I thought i had got rid of those, my eyes ain't what they used to be!

 

The kit has 2 sets for the Canopy, a clear and 'smoked' one. I used the smoked front section and the clear rear section as I've seen a few vipers with this configuration. Canopy seams removed with a sharp blade then polished and dipped in Klear and masked, canopy frame PE added and grab handles made from stretched sprue as i think these will look better than the 2D offerings from eduard.

 

Started to play around with the Lantirn pod, its from Hasegawa, not the best but it should work.

 

Still lots to do, next up I'll add the reinforcement plates from Daco to the upper fuselage, then hopefully i can start painting soon and think about the loadout, more on that next time!

Cheers

[ruudster]

Looking great!

Vipers are my #1 favorite aircraft.  Never enough!

[Pappy]

G'day Rich,

 

Very tidy work so far.

 

I am a little curious though why you chose to use the Hasegawa pod (which you say is not the best) when you have at least three resin pods to choose from?

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[Rich F]

4 hours ago, Pappy said:

G'day Rich,

 

Very tidy work so far.

 

I am a little curious though why you chose to use the Hasegawa pod (which you say is not the best) when you have at least three resin pods to choose from?

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

Cheers Pappy, the 2 resin pods i have are Litening pods not Lantirn. Looking at the pic i posted of 88-0547 getting airborne from Incirlik AB it looks like a Lantirn pod too me. Litening pods have a vertical intake on the rear while Lantirn pods have a diagonal intake.

 

The Dr Pepper pod is not great as detail is soft and has a mold seam running the length of it, the Eduard brassin pod is much better, this would be the one i would use if i could find a pic of a 138th FW bird carrying one.

[Pappy]

59 minutes ago, Rich F said:

Cheers Pappy, the 2 resin pods i have are Litening pods not Lantirn. Looking at the pic i posted of 88-0547 getting airborne from Incirlik AB it looks like a Lantirn pod too me. Litening pods have a vertical intake on the rear while Lantirn pods have a diagonal intake.

 

The Dr Pepper pod is not great as detail is soft and has a mold seam running the length of it, the Eduard brassin pod is much better, this would be the one i would use if i could find a pic of a 138th FW bird carrying one.

 

Got it, makes sense now,

 

cheers,

 

Pappy

[Rich F]

Getting there slowly is where I'm at presently!

 

Almost ready for paint now unless anything else crops up, I have a couple of sink marks and scratches to deal with then i should be ready to get the airbrush out.

I had the Daco reinforcement plates which are good if a little thick, I started with the RAM plates on the side of the rear fuselage (blue plates) which were a little off size wise, so i trimmed them a little.

When i came to apply the plates on the top of the fuselage i found that they didn't quite fit in any direction,I can only think they are meant for the Hasegawa kit. So i ordered the Furball F-16 reinforcement plates, much better even if i had to wait a week for Mr postman to put them through the letter box!

Whist i was waiting for the plates to arrive i had a play with the pylons and added the sway braces which are missing from the otherwise excellent kit pylons. These were made from some 0.3mm tubing and some very small plastic discs which i punched out.

 

I was going to have 2x gbu-12's (500lb LGB)under one wing and 2x gbu-38's (500lb GPS) under the other mounted on the F-16 type TER's but looking at photos on the net i can only see multiple gbu-38's mounted on F/A-18 style BRU's (bomb rack units) which i dont have. So i decided to go with a single gbu-16 (1000lb LGB) instead of the gbu-38's.
All bombs are from the Hasegawa weapons set, As you can see I've started to modify them a bit, I've drilled out the fins on the seaker heads and will 'droop' which is a characteristic of them when they are sat doing nothing on the ground. The eagle eyed amongst you will also notice i have added a protective cover to one of the bombs, this is easily made with a bit of styrene tubing carefully drilled out to fit then a cap on the end, effective and hides the solid plastic seeker head which should be clear yellow.

 

This the loadout I'm going to go with, any Viper experts please shout up if you see any glaring errors?

Hopefully next update will show a coat of paint
 

[Rich F]

Sadly not a lot of progress since my last update, although i have been working the odd hour or two when i get the time.

 

Finally got some paint on it, started with a black base using Mr finishing surfacer 1500. Then i hit a snag, my compressor decided to rapidly decompress and spurt rusty water everywhere, upon further investigation i found a nice little hole around a weld line at the bottom of the tank. 🙄

 

So after investing in a new compressor i was back in business (note to self to remember to drain the tank regularly) I've started on the neutral grey with the usual mottling first...

 

 

I've also made a start with the Aires Exhaust.

 

 

The 125th FS uses the block 42 with the new(ish) F100-PW-229 engine so this motor has carbon fibre exhaust petals so i decided to purchase the Hiroboy carbon fibre decal sheet, I'll let you know how this turns out.

Also built the Plus model boarding ladder, should look the business after a lick of paint.

Also had a play with the LANTIRN pod, using some holographic film i stuck to the target tracker window, not sure why i did this as i plan to have the seeker head in the stowed position so it will be hidden, at least i know its there!

 

 

Really hoping to have this finished before the end of the year, before you ask i do mean 2022 😄

 

Cheers

[Rich F]

Happy new year folks!

Well didn't make my end of year deadline did I? Probably because most of the holiday i was suffering with a nasty case of man-flu and could hardly pull myself from my bed let alone sit in front of the modelling bench!

Anyway once i recovered sufficiently I managed to get the Gunship grey on, I used  H305 Mr Hobby Aqueous and added about 25% H5 Blue to give it that distinctive blue hue that you see on F-16's.

I layed down a coat that covered most of the the black undercoat.

Next up i used a mottle mask with a lightened base coat followed by the same process but a darker base coat.

 

 

I than went over this again with a highly thinned base colour to blend the mottling. I then used a slightly lightened base coat to the center of the panels to give it a slightly sun bleached effect, i really hope this shows up once i have a gloos coat as it is quite suttle.

 

 

The radome was painted using H317 and once again i used the mottling effect technique.

 

The end is in sight now, honest!

 

Cheers

[Rich F]

Getting closer to finishing this one now.

 

Gloss coat on, I purchased a bottle of Mr Color Super Clear III UV gloss coat after hearing good things about it. I thinned it with some Mr Color Leveling thinner about 50/50. I wasn't disappointed, this is by far the best gloss coat i have ever used.

 

Next up was the decals for the Viper, I used the Experts choice decals first the for the unit markings which gave no trouble except for the tail band is a little short.

For the rest of the markings i have an Astra Decals F-16 Aviano sheet which has markings for 2 aircraft, these laid down beautifully with some Mr Mark Setter and Softner.

 

The short tail band will get a shot of custom mixed red paint at the back.

I couldn't resist hanging the wing tanks, i used a mix of high and low viz markings for these to add interest. I will paint the filler caps as the decals for these were a tad to big.

 

 

 

I wasnt happy with the Hasegawa GBU-12's and 16 so i liberated some from my F-14d kit, much better. Decals for the underwing stores came from a varity of ordance sheets i have.

I'm not that happy with the AMRAAM's either but i think i will have to live with these!

Next up my favourite bit, the weathering and a spot of detail painting. I'm working away for the next couple of weeks so this will have to wait.

 

Cheers