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Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet ‘Bounty Hunters’ (LS-016) 1:48


Mike

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Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet ‘Bounty Hunters’ (LS-016)

1:48 MENG via Creative Models Ltd

 

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The original Hornet design lost the Lightweight Fighter battle with what became the F-16, but after some re-designing and tweaking, it won the contract for the US Navy’s do-it-all fighter to replace the Tomcats, Corsairs et al, becoming the multi-role F/A-18 Hornet.  When more capabilities were required, a further re-design that was more of a total do-over but retained the same general shape and designation, only about a third larger for reasons best left unsaid, but probably budget related, and a way to get around possible restrictions or pitfalls barring a new type.  This much larger aircraft became the Super Hornet, with the two-seater designated F/A-18F, and the single-seat variant E, both of which began production in the late 90s, entering service just before the new millennium.  With the withdrawal of the F-14 Tomcat in 2006 they became the primary carrier-borne fighter of the US Navy and Marines, serving alongside the original Hornet for a while, but all of the “legacy” Hornets have now left US service, although they remain on the books of some foreign operators.  You can easily tell them apart without a size reference by checking the intakes.  Oval = Hornet, Rectangular = Super Hornet.

 

The enlargement of the wing area, lengthening on the fuselage and installation of more powerful GE engines changed the characteristics of the airframe markedly, giving it more speed, weapons capability and range, with even more tankage hung from the wings, and buddy-pods allowing same-type refuelling operations without having a vulnerable dedicated tanker on station.  There have been various upgrades over the years, and the Super Hornet has a wide range of munitions to choose from, making it a capable all-round war-fighter that is still nowhere near the end of its service life, although trials with pilotless carrier-based aircraft are underway.  In addition to the E and F variants, the G, or Growler is a heavily modified two-seater with a huge quantity of Electronic Warfare equipment carried both internally and externally on pylons.

 

 

The Kit

This is brand-new kit from Meng that is based on their recent single-seat F/A-18E, but with new parts to give us the two-seater.  We have come to expect great things from Meng, as they have impressive technical skills and a penchant for high levels of detail in their kits.  It arrives in one of their standard satin-sheened deep boxes with a painting of the aircraft on the front, and a host of goodies inside.  Opening the box reveals nineteen sprues of various sizes in grey styrene plus two fuselage halves in the same plastic, five small sprues in clear, plus the canopy (all wrapped in protective self-cling plastic), three sets of small poly-caps, a Ziploc bag containing ten flat-headed pins, a small sheet of Photo-Etch (PE) metal, two sheets of decals, a clear plastic sheet with pre-cut kabuki tape masks, the instruction booklet with colour profiles in the rear, four sheets of card with information about the F/A-18 in four languages, and a similarly multi-lingual competition flyer to win cash prizes, apparently.

 

Everything is separately bagged with mildly annoying staples closing them up, and once you have found your way past these you see the high quality of the parts within.  Detail is right up there with the best, and has finely engraved panel lines, with raised detail where appropriate and slide-moulding used to improve quality further without creating more parts that make some people sweat profusely.

 

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Construction begins reassuringly conventionally with the cockpit, with the new twin-seat tub having the sidewalls installed next to the detailed side consoles, a large control column part in the front and a smaller one in the rear, chunky HOTAS-style throttles, and a pair of well-appointed instrument panels, which have a number of individual decals supplied for both it and the side consoles, the numbers for which are called out in scrap diagrams.  The rudder pedals are moulded into the floor and could do with some more detail if you intend to shine a light in there, and you can see them in the shadows of the detail photos above.  The nose gear bay is made up from a roof, shallow sides, front bulkhead and some thick trunking/hoses snaking through the bay. Those two sub-assemblies are mated then trapped between the forward lower fuselage halves, with the top half moulded-into the rest of the new upper fuselage, to be brought together later.  In the meantime, the upper fuselage is prepared by fitting the wing lowers with a choice of folded or straight wing-hinge supports, and choice of ECS ram air exhaust types, the multi-tubular type having some impressive moulding.

 

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The F-18 runs two GE F414 turbofans, with long intakes to keep the rapidly rotating fans away from the prying eyes of enemy radar beams.  The trunking is made from two halves, and has a few ejector-pin marks inside, but cleaning those up before joining the halves should make the task easier.  The rear is covered by a representation of the engine front, then the completed trunks are attached to the appropriate main gear bay boxes, which are made from three parts, and have more highly impressive detail moulded-in, as shown above.  The two sub-assemblies are inserted into the lower fuselage from within, and splitter plates are attached to the sides of the fuselage on two slots, with some fine detail moulded-in.  The rectangular sides of the intake trunking and lower fuselage sides fit around the assembly, then a pair of pivots are slotted into the rear fuselage with poly-caps allowing them to rotate without suffering from modeller’s droop.  The lower nose clips into the lower fuselage, then the upper fuselage is lowered over it, mating snugly even without glue from a quick test fit I made.  She’s looking like an aircraft now, but the cockpit is unfinished and she’s got no nose.  The coaming is first, and has the HUD sides added and a circular projector lens in the bottom.  The two clear panels are inserted between the supports one over the other, with a scrap diagram showing the correct position, then it can be glued in place and the windscreen fixed over the top.  The coaming between the pilots is also inserted, and a shortened turtle-deck behind the rear seat is made up from two detailed parts, followed by the nose cone and insert with the muzzle cover for the M61A2 Vulcan cannon at the top, joined to the fuselage with a stepped ridge helping to improve fit.

 

The Hornet’s upper wings are moulded into the fuselage, but the slats and flaps are separate paired parts, the slats capable of being modelled deployed, or by cutting off the nubs in the leading edge, retracted.  The flaps can also be depicted cleaned-up with one set of straight actuator fairings, or fully deployed by using a separate cranked set, with the gap between the sections filled by the upper surface inserts.  If you chose the unfolded wing joint earlier, it’s simply a matter of applying the top and bottom sections to the link, adding the spacer, then fitting the appropriate flap actuator fairings for the flaps, and the slats in extended or retracted positions, again by removing the nubs on the leading edge.  The folded wingtips are made up with retracted flaps and slats plus straight fairings before they are inserted into the L-shaped fold with a different set of spacers.  The two vertical fins have a T-shaped pivot point inserted under a small separate section of the rudder, then the completed rudder is trapped between the two halves of the fin without glue so it can pivot later.  A nav. light is inserted into the outer side, and the other fin is a near mirror image.  The fins fit into slots in the rear fuselage, and the elevators push into the poly-caps hidden within the fuselage sides later on.

 

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The twin exhausts start with a cylinder that has the rear of the engine moulded-in, a PE afterburner ring, then a two-part length of trunking with a corrugated interior.  A choice of exhaust petal types finishes off the rear, one set having straight petals, the other with cranked rear sections, and after painting they’re inserted into the two apertures in the rear of the fuselage.  The rugged nose gear of the Super Hornet has to be sturdy to withstand repeated carrier launches followed by spirited arrestor-hook landings, and you have a choice of setting the catapult bar in the up position for parked, or down for an aircraft ready to launch.  A landing light and a number of stencil placards are applied to the leg after painting it white, and the twin wheels fit either side of the transverse axle.  Additional parts are fitted in and around the nose gear bay when inserting the gear leg, then gear bay doors are fixed around the bay, causing much perspiration when you have to add the red edges to each one.  The main gear legs also have a number of placards added after painting, and the wheels are made up from two parts each.  These too have additional parts added during fitting into the bays, closely followed by the red-rimmed bay doors and their actuators.  Just in case you wanted to catch an arrestor wire, the hook nestles between the two exhaust fairings on a long lug.

 

The instructions have you making up the munitions for a break before completing the model, but we’ll cover that later.  The ejection seat is made up from a series of very well detailed parts, and although it doesn’t have seatbelts for absent pilots, there are stencils for the headbox sides and rear.  They are installed in the cockpit, optionally along with the individually posed pilot figures that come on the sprues, which have separate arms, a wrap-around flotation vest and separate helmeted head with O2 hose.  The new longer canopy part is crystal clear with an external seam over the top that you can either leave there (it’s pretty fine), or sand flush and polish back to clarity.  There is a frame insert to fit within the canopy, and a choice of two canopy openers, depending on whether you wish to pose the canopy open or closed.  A blade antenna in the centre of spine finishes off the top of your model.  Under the port Leading Edge Root Extension (LERX), the integral crew ladder is stored (on the real thing), and it can be posed open by adding the ladder with its two supports and the open door to the bay, or if you want to pose it closed, put the long narrow part over the shallow recess to represent one edge of the ladder.

 

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Back to the weapons.  This is where the rest of the pins and tiny poly-caps come into play, allowing you to switch and change your load-out whenever you want on some of the pylons.  Most of the pylon types have the pins trapped between them, four of type-A, two of type-B, and one of type-C.  Type-B also has an adapter rail fitted instead of pins, which is also made from two parts, and these fit on the outer wing stations, while the four identical pylons fit on the two inner stations per wing, and the solitary Type-C attaches to the centreline.  A pair of wingtip rails are made up with spacer plates, then you can choose which of the supplied weapon types to hang from them.  This boxing includes a pair of AGM-65 Mavericks (accidental Top Gun reference) with clear seeker-heads, separate tails and detailed adapter rails.  Two GBU-16s and two GBU-12s are built from halves, with the fins in the front and rear separate parts, and there is a clear “droopy” seeker-head, with the poly-caps inserted into chambers in the bomb halves.  The AIM-9Xs have clear seeker-heads and exhausts, plus adapter rails, while the three AIM-120Cs are each moulded complete, with a slim adapter rail.  The two AIM-9Ms have a clear seeker, and eight separate fins, then the AN/ASQ-228 targeting pod is made from two halves, a two-part rotating sensor mounting with mask, and tubular rear fairing, which is mounted on a concave pylon that fits to the port of the underside fuselage.  Scrap diagrams show the correct location of the missiles on their rails, as well as the targeting pod, while another larger diagram shows which options can be placed on which pylons.  It’s always best to look at some real-world photos for examples for demonstrable and practical load-outs.

 

 

Markings

There are three decal options on the sheet, and you also get a set of canopy masks that are pre-cut from kabuki tape.  From the box you can build one of the following:

 

  • VFA-2 ‘Bounty Hunters’ Strike Fighter Sqn., Carrier Wing 2, USS Abraham Lincoln, 2008 piloted by Capt. JC Aquilino & WSO Scott Van Buskirk
  • VFA-2 ‘Bounty Hunters’ Strike Fighter Sqn., Carrier Wing 2, USS Abraham Lincoln, 2007 piloted by Cdr. Guimond & WSO Cdr. Eden
  • VFA-2 ‘Bounty Hunters’ Strike Fighter Sqn., Carrier Wing 2, USS Abraham Lincoln, 2004 piloted by L.Cdr. Keith Kimberly & WSO L.Cdr. Mike Peterson

 

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Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin gloss carrier film cut close to the printed areas.  The main sheet includes all the markings for the airframe, while the smaller sheet contains the stencils for the pylons and the weapons, of which there are many on a modern jet.  The colours are called out in Meng/AK codes, as well as Gunze’s recent water-based Acrysion paints, which haven’t been prominently available in the UK, although that’s changing as time goes by.

 

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The masks on the clear sheet have been pre-weeded so you only get the masks, without all the surrounding tape.  There are masks for all the wheels, the landing light, one for the window of the AN/ASQ-228 targeting pod, and frame-hugging masks for the canopy and windscreen.  You are advised to fill in the highly curved centres of the canopy and screen with liquid mask or small sections of tape cut to length with some angles cut where necessary.  Unfortunately, I managed to ruck-up the edge of one of my canopy masks, as it wasn’t protected from things brushing over it by the usual background tape.

 

 

Conclusion

Meng have brought their own particular set of skills to the party with both the E and now two F variants, and there's also the EA-18G Growler, which is my favourite.  They have produced a highly detailed model of both single-seat and now two two-seat variants, with fancy decals, some excellent moulding and markings to create a model that is excellent out of the box, without the necessity of aftermarket.

 

Extremely highly recommended.

 

Currently out of stock with Creative due to popularity, but are bound to be back soon, so keep checking back.

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Review sample courtesy of

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I have the original release of the F and was looking forward to building it. I did however see a WIP for the kit that made mention of poor fit, particularly around the intakes where a lot of filling and sanding was required. I've seen no other such comments and wondering if this was just 'user' error, anyone any experience?

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On 11/14/2022 at 11:54 AM, Muzz said:

I have the original release of the F and was looking forward to building it. I did however see a WIP for the kit that made mention of poor fit, particularly around the intakes where a lot of filling and sanding was required. I've seen no other such comments and wondering if this was just 'user' error, anyone any experience?

I've got the original 'F' release with Jolly Roger's markings and have been working my way through building the sub assemblies, I was also aware of some reports of difficulty with the intake area. 

 

The instructions have you put the inlet duct onto the top of the wheel bay, then in step 5 fit the inner wall section of the inlet onto the lower fuselage, and then assemble the duct and wheel well into the fuselage, and then put the side fuselage panels on in step 6.

 

Having done some taping together and more than a few dry fits, I'm planning to firstly assemble the inner inlet wall section onto the outer fuselage side panel, and having kept the duct and wheel well separate wiggle these into position un-glued so that the fuselage side panel, inlet duct and wheel well all go in to the lower fuselage at the same time. This approach does seem feasible with a little bit of careful trimming. The inner wall section of the intake will spring slightly away from the fuselage but it does not take much force to pull this back into its correct position for gluing.

 

Hopefully this will mean no filling inside the inlet duct.

 

Eng

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