F-16XL Skunkmodels 1/48

[kiseca]

 

 

My first new build for 2024 is Skunkmodels's F-16XL.  This is an aircraft that I am sure needs no introduction on here even though only two were ever built. Thus for this intro I will focus on the kit itself.  The kit, being relatively new, has seen some coverage on BM too. Mike did an excellent review maybe 9 years ago now. Apart from that, and one unfinished WIP, this model doesn't look like its had much time in the spotlight on Britmodeller, so I decided record my build here.

 

The first thing that struck me about this kit was the size and weight of it. The box is fairly average length and width but it is quite deep. It is bigger than I was expecting for what is a single engined, single seat light fighter. And then I opened the box and it is full to the brim with plastic. 280 parts according to the box. That's quite a lot.

 

 

Lots and lots of parts. On lots of sprues.

 

 

 

 

 

Many photos of the XL show it carrying a quite ridiculous number of weapons and that goes some way to explaining the kit's high parts count. A  browse through the instructions reveals the rest. Everything seems to be broken down into little pieces. The vertical stabiliser is a 9 part assembly. The nose cone is provided in two halves. Each wheel is 4 parts. Two for the wheel itself, and two parts for each tyre, which is separate. It also appears to have two fully moving elevons. I won't be needing those. Probably legacy parts from this kit's origins as Kinetic's regular F-16. Happily this high part count also means good detail levels like the well appointed cockpit, complete intake tunnel, separate afterburner ring, posable flight surfaces, and more.

 

Instruction booklet is comprehensive.

 

Note the part count for the vertical fin in step 8.

 

Plenty of decals to work with. Two sheets are provided. One has the markings for the five XL schemes offered with the kit. The other carries the Kinetic name and looks like generic F-16 markings.

 

 

Yep, you read that correctly. Skunkmodels offer five options for detailing your XL. Considering only two XLs ere ever built, and of those two only one was a single seater, that is a surprisingly generous range of options.

 

Two of them are the two actual paint schemes that the single seater, XL1, wore in its career. There's the grey scheme with the blue spine worn when XL1 was a demonstrator, and the black with gold stripes scheme worn during its service with NASA.

 

The other three schemes are what ifs: Two USAF grey squadron liveries and a more colourful Israeli Airforce option. The instructions dedicate two full pages to each livery, which is nice, but the images are in black and white which I find makes it a bit harder, particularly for the Israeli livery, to match the colours on the aircraft to the colour keys. Everything is similar shades of grey. This is not an issue for the two actual schemes as there are plenty of reference photos on the internet of XL1 wearing those scheme. There are, of course, no reference photos for the what-ifs though. It can be worked out with a bit of logic and by referencing different types of aircraft that wear the camouflages used, but it would be nicer if the colours in the instructions were easier to tell apart.

 

XL1's prototype / demonstrator scheme. This is the one I'll be modelling.

 

 

The NASA scheme is also really nice.

 

The two USAF options

 

 

 

 

The IAF option.

 

I am really looking forward to this one. Any F-16 is a good looking aircraft but to my eyes the XL, with its large, elegant wing draped over it like an evening dress, is the fairest of them all. It will be a fitting compliment to the 1/48 F-20 Tigershark already on my shelf: Two famous 1980s aircraft that failed to find buyers.

Edited January 13, 2024 by kiseca

[Thom216]

Very cool! I had one of these in the stash before I realized I was not going to be doing jets in 1/48, and sold it off. Ended up getting the old Monogram 1/72s, so I'll be along for the ride.

[Alan P]

This is the first I've seen of this kit, so this should be interesting. I don't mind a high parts count as long as they fit!

[exdraken]

Nice project!

 

I also have those in the stash... looking forward to your build!

[kiseca]

8 hours ago, Alan P said:

This is the first I've seen of this kit, so this should be interesting. I don't mind a high parts count as long as they fit!

Yeah 

 

I've always said my favourite part of modelling is glueing the bits together, so I should be rejoicing, really!

 

[kiseca]

It's been so long since my first post I'll qualify for a holy thread resurrection batman meme but if you thought I'd abandoned my F-16XL, you're wrong!

 

Actually there isn't much progress to report, but some stuff has happened. Here's where we are right now:

 

Cockpit is painted and attached to fuselage upper half.

 

 

Wheel wells are painted. Now need some detail parts attached, and a wash.

 

 

 

Jet intake tunnel is painted. This has a front half and a back half and is the most comprehensive intake tunnel I've come across in a model so far. I painted the interior before joining the top and bottom halves but then found that the join was too prominent so I had to fill that in with some carefully syringed Perfect Putty and then sand it down with a round sanding stick, before repainting carefully. You can see my work quite clearly in the back half, hopefully that won't be visible once assembled.

 

Front half:

 

 

And back half, with fan:

 

 

The fan is almost completely invisible down the full length of the tunnel.

 

 

My thoughts on the model so far are: it could be better. Fit is fairly ordinary and many parts need some sanding or filler to fix the joins. As an example, below you can see there's going to be a big gap to fix just behind the leading edge, where the bottom half of the fuselage joins the top half.

 

The fuselage doesn't fit together well in other areas either. The front and rear will have to be gently bent down to make contact, and I needed my sanding sticks to make parts of the wheel wells fit as well.

 

It's not terrible but the quality with which the parts fit together is definitely below average in my fairly short experience. 

 

 

There is still plenty to do before I join the fuselage up, but next up is the jet exhaust, which is quite detailed with a separate turbine and afterburner ring and corrugated inner walls, but again it really doesn't fit together snugly. That's a bit of a shame on a kit that has twice as many parts to fit together than most at this scale.

 

Still, now the Tu-22 is finished, this becomes my primary build and should start moving along a bit more quickly from here on. Despite my reservations on quality I do think this is going to produce a highly detailed and well shaped, attractive F-16XL.

Edited June 14, 2024 by kiseca

[PeteH1969]

Very nicely done.

 

It is such a better looking aircraft than the normal 16.

 

Oh for a modern 32nd scale model.

 

Pete

[kiseca]

As I predicted elsewhere on BM, the fortuitous acquisition of a VR headset has derailed my modelling for much of this year.

 

There has been some progress, at least. Overall I am finding the fit and finish on this kit below average. Most parts need some fettling to get to fit together, or correction once they are joined. The instructions have so far also had more than one incorrectly labelled parts, and when there are about 260 of them spread over about 10 sprues, that is annoying. Still, it's moving forward at least, and it's not the worst I've come across.

 

Undercarriage parts are all painted and ready. If it looks like a lot of parts for a tricycle undercarriage, then remember that the two main wheels were 4 pieces each and the nose wheel was 3 pieces. One upcoming challenge in the build is the main landing gears main leg assembly. Ironically, they made that one piece when two would have been better for once. The single piece has to slot in place before a body panel goes on top to fill in a gap between the main landing gear bays and the nose bay. Thus, the main gear pegs will be poking out while I'm painting the body. They'll be a challenge to mask and there's a good chance I'll eventually break bits of it off. The fit and finish on the model is not great, so painting the body before installing that final panel is installed is not going to look good since it will likely need some tidying up and filler. Regardless, I'll explore that routr, it may still be the safer option in the end.

 

 

Next up was the exhaust can. This is OOB but includes a deep tailpipe with a turbine wheel at the end and a separate afterburner ring in front of it. It's the most detail I've had OOB so far in a 1/48 jet exhaust.

 

 

And the nozzle. This is in Vallejo Metal Color Jet Exhaust. Some white sprayed lightly on the inside, Tamiya titanium weathering powdervon the petals and then a dark wash on the lower surfaces to increase the contrast. A coat of satin varnish over the top to keep the powder in place.

 

 

Trying out for size in the fuselage:

 

 

And finally, a big milestone for me in any build, the fuselage halves come together. Slowly and bit by bit.. it's a big join.

 

 

This join, as most others, doesn't fit together particularly well. There's a large gap that will need to be filled and levelled along the join under each wing, shown in this closeup:

 

 

It has a particularly ugly ill fitting portion along each side of the fuselage too. This join is going to need a lot of work.

 

 

Next up will be the vertical tail. Here are the parts...

 

 

There are more parts in that tailfin than there are in this entire model:

 

 

It really does seem like overkill. On the plus side the detail level is really good.

 

The nosecone is two parts. Unfortunately I was not surprised when joining them left a trench all along the join, both top and bottom. More work will be needed to tidy that up too.

 

With the nosecone and tail balanced temporarily in place, the XL shows off her long, elegant, slender shape.

 

 

I was actually surprised how large the tail on an F-16 is. The Tornado gets jokes because of its huge tail but the F-16's is pretty tall too!

 

 

 

 

 

[PeteH1969]

Nice progress.

 

Pete

[Biggles87]

It looks like a nice kit with lots of detail, shame about the bad fit but I’m sure you’ll bear it into submission.

Looking forward to more.

 

John

 

[kiseca]

1 hour ago, Biggles87 said:

It looks like a nice kit with lots of detail, shame about the bad fit but I’m sure you’ll bear it into submission.

Looking forward to more.

 

John

 

 

Indeed. It's not a bad kit as such and I think it will come out well. It's just adding a lot of extra work which would not be needed with better fit and a smaller parts count. I haven't come across anything yet that can't be overcome, just annoying things, for example the bad fit on the wing joint is right next to a lot of rivet detail which will be easy to lose while filling and levelling the joint, or the base for the vertical stabilizer which has a handy locating and joint strengthening tab to fit in a corresponding hole in the upper fuselage... except the tab is too big. It doesn't fit. I'll have to make the tab smaller or the hole bigger.

 

The top of the vertical stabiliser is also a separate part for some reason. It also has a locating tab, but the tab is off to one side of the top piece, and the hole it fits into on the vertical stabiliser is centred. If I put the piece in its locating hole it doesn't align with the rest of the tail! I just cut the tab off and glued it in to the flat surface. None of these are big issues, it's just that each little piece needs some extra effort to get it to fit or to be aligned, and there are so many little pieces 😂

 

So much of the shape and detail are really good. The detail is really sharp and the shape - to my eyes which have never seen a real XL at least - is very convincing. I think it can make a superb looking model especially if someone does one of the what ifs, makes it look well used and makes all that detail pop out . I'm doing the demonstrator which would be relatively clean but I still want to add some patina to it.

[Thom216]

Good looking progress. The XL is my favorite looking Viper. Really wish they had gone ahead with this plane.

[kiseca]

Merry Christmas everyone! I've got a lull in the festivities so I'll take the time to give an update on this build.

 

I finished all the control surfaces. The flaps and ailerons (or elevons, I forget) come with four locating tabs on them. They can be attached either flush with the wing or deflected downwards. You remove the two locating tabs that correspond with the position you don't want. I put everything flush.

 

 

It's a grand idea but has one significant problem. The tabs don't face straight forward but angle out towards the wingtip. When combined with the trailing edge bullet (or, for the inner control surfaces, the bodywork leading to the air brakes), the tips of the angled tabs can't be lined up with their respective holes in the wings. I had to file one side of each tab down to a longitudinally straight edge so I could get them into the locating slots. An alternative would have been to just cut all the tabs off. It seems an odd thing to have not been picked up in test builds so maybe I missed something in the build sequence. Anyway it was a bit of a pain but easy enough to solve.

 

Then, I took a closer look at the canopy and was horrified to see it has a moulding ridge right down the middle.

 

 

never seen this before on a canopy and was cursing Skunkmodels while googling for solutions, when said googling revealed this isn't that uncommon, some canopy shapes are just difficult or impossible to form without the ridge. This is my first F-16 model so it's likely I've just never built a model that needs the ridge. All forgiven at Skunkmodels then, and again the solution was pretty easy since I had some Tamiya polishing paste handy and that did the trick to get the plastic all clear again once I'd sanded the ridge off.

 

The joins were then all filled in and smoothed off...

 

 

... the canopy was masked up, and the XL was ready for her base coat.

 

 

I used white primer for the base coat because there it would make the white parts of the final paintjob easier to do.

 

 

The white hadn't yet fully covered the grey and I didn't want to smother the detail in primer so on the top half I used Vallejo White to finish off the spine and vertical stabiliser. I usually paint all the colours from lightest to darkest so once the white was on, I painted the underside in the recommended Dark Ghost Grey. I then masked off the two white stripes that run down the spine and either side of the canopy using 2mm Tamiya tape. There are decals for these stripes, but as I learnt on an earlier 1983 Honda NS500 motorbike build, white decals aren't very good at hiding any paint colour changes beneath them, so I opted to do the stripes in paint. The decal stripes are little under 2mm wide. I hoped the 2mm tape would be close enough, because I could think of no way to get stripes of consistent width at anything narrower apart from going down to 1mm, which would definitely be too narrow.

 

With the stripes and the rest of the spine masked off, I painted the nose in Medium Grey.

 

 

The majority of the upper body is a darker grey, with a soft edge between that and the medium grey. I went for a very thick Blu-Tak worm to help get that soft edge while keeping both sides reasonably symmetrical.

 

 

This was not fully successful. Between the two coats, I managed to get my angles different and created a shadow or overspray effect on the border. The port side was worse, but both needed correcting.

 

 

Some careful correction later, using some thinner blutak worms, and the borders were as good as I was going to get them, and also good enough tmfor me to proceed with. Also here you can see the 2mm masking tape strips protecting the white paint below. The darker grey is Medium Gunship Grey, again as per both Skunkmodel's instructions and Vallejo's own instructions on their USAF paint set for this camo pattern.

 

 

Here's the underside, which was painted earlier but not photographed at the time.

 

 

That left the blue on the spine and the red at the top of the fin. I did the blue over the weekend and the red on Monday, and that's how she is now.

 

The instructions call for Insignia Blue. More googling revealed that this is Signal Blue in the Vallejo range, which I thought would be a bit dark but it's hard to tell from photos as the shade of blue varies wildly in photos of the real thing depending, I guess, on who took it and how well the photos have survived. I assumed it should match the blue on the Stars and Stripes, which is quite dark, so I went ahead with the signal blue. I do still think it is too dark, but once I applied it, I thought it was going to be difficult to correct without removing it. I can live with it. Also, as feared, the white stripes do look too wide, but again it's something I can live with.

 

 

And a couple of shots with the not yet tinted glass in place. In some photos the radome looks the same colour as the forward upper grey, and in some photos it looks a little darker than that, like the same colour painted over a darker base material. To replicate that subtle difference, I put a couple of drops of the gunship grey in a cup of medium grey and that's what I used on the radome.

 

 

 

There is still a lot to do. Decals and final finish, obviously, but also all the ordnance - and there is a lot of that - and the previously mentioned canopy tint. It is, however, progressing steadily and with her paintwork in place, the XL is really starting to show off her classy, elegant lines.

 

 

Edited December 25, 2024 by kiseca

[Thom216]

That splash of color is nice against the grays. Looking good!

[Rob K.]

Looking great so far. Always liked the look of this f-16 prototype variant 👍

[kiseca]

I got the decals done over January / February. It took a few sessions to complete them all. They are slow to release from the backing paper, which means a lot of time is spent just waiting while one is soaking, and then there are a lot of really thin, long decals for the wings that have to be added one at a time and take a long, long time to place because they aren't very sticky. I found it quite hard to line up one end without disturbing the opposite end. Silvering was also a problem despite applying them to a gloss surface, mostly when the decals are over a panel line, and I had to puncture a few of them to get some Microset and Microsol into the gaps and settle the decals down.

 

They're all done now, however, and they are worth the effort.

 

I gave it a wash with a pastel mix to try pick out the panels without dirtying the rest of the aircraft too much, and then applied the final varnish.

 

This in itself had a self inflicted challenge. For the grey parts of the paintwork, I wanted a matt finish, but in photos the red, white and blue sections of the original aircraft look glossy. I didn't trust myself to apply this with a hairy brush without leaving brush strokes on the model, which meant I'd have to mask it.... over the decals 😬

 

The big danger here is pulling decals off the model with the masking tape, and there are a couple of decals which do cross from the grey into the blue. I did some messing about online and came across a suggestion to cut pieces of paper to shape and size to create a barrier between the tape and the decal. That was my favourite suggestion and so it's the method I used.

 

I first applied the matt varnish (Winsor & Newton) without worrying about crossing over the white lines, and once that had set I applied the mask.

 

 

That bit of masking gave me enough tape to form a base to which I could secure some more protection to cover the wings, which I did with a chopped up plastic bag. I then applied satin varnish to the top stripe (also Winsor & Newton).

 

Once that sets the model is ready for the landing gear and canopy to be added, and that will be everything done apart from the munitions and pylons, and a bunch of little aerials and bit that I'd forgotten about during the build.

 

 

And with the canopy dry-fitted:

 

 

 

The vertical stabiliser needs a refit. It sat at an angle and in fixing that I've left a gap under the leading edge.

 

So, aircraft itself nearly finished, but there's still a long way to go to completion. The munitions are plentiful, and each bomb and missile is made of half a dozen bits, so there's a lot of gluing and filing to do. Not helping matters, the instructions are of mixed quality. They are great for some of the munitions, and the table showing all the fitting options including which ordnance can go on which pylon is brilliant. It's comprehensice and really easy to read.

 

Other bits though, the assembly instructions are vague or just plain wrong. My chief worry are the Mk 82 bombs. These are possibly the most iconic stores carried on the XL, with 6 of them in a triangle formation hanging from each wing. First problem is the kit provides Mk 82s with Snake Eye retarders. I've never seen a picture of an XL with the Snake Eye tails on its 82s.

 

Then, the kit gives no instructions about the pylons for the Mk 82s. It includes the pylons in the instructions for every other munition and tank, but not the Mk 82s.

 

There is only one pylon included in the kit which has enough copies to hold all 12 Mk 82s (in fact there are 4 extra to cover the two extra stations in that section of the wing) but there is no obvious way to connect the bomb to the pylon. The bombs have holes for pins at the top, but the pylons don't have the equivalent pins on their bottom edge. There are two gaps on the pylons which look like they could hold additional mounting pieces but they don't line up with the holes on the bombs, and there are no obvious pieces in the kit that I can find that would link the bomb to the pylon.

 

 

Adding to the problems with the Mk 82s, the fit of the 4 parts is not good at all, and most of the joins are right near the complicated shapes of the Snake Eye appendages where they will be difficult to tidy up.

 

I've been considering getting aftermarket Mk 82s instead.. but I can't find any that come with pylons so they'd only be solving half the problem. For now I'll carry on..

 

 

The fitting gaps in the Mk 82s are visible below.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 23 by kiseca

[Thom216]

Your progress is looking great! It's a big beautidful plane. 

 

One thing, I thought I saw mention on another build about the mounting holes for the racks being out of place, putting the bombs too close together..? Hope not.

[kiseca]

25 minutes ago, Thom216 said:

Your progress is looking great! It's a big beautidful plane. 

 

One thing, I thought I saw mention on another build about the mounting holes for the racks being out of place, putting the bombs too close together..? Hope not.

 

Hmm. I'll check that, thanks for the warning!

[Thom216]

28 minutes ago, kiseca said:

 

Hmm. I'll check that, thanks for the warning!

Hope it comes to naught.

[exdraken]

Following your path closely..... 😀

 

[kiseca]

....and she's standing on her own three pegs.

 

 

Most of the antennae have been done, busy with the various lights, and also assembling the munitions and tanks still. The canopy is still just dry fitted and the HUD isn't added yet. There's too much to do on the underside still with all the stores to add, inevitable I'll knock the canopy off 5 times, maybe break it twice, and lose the HUD too. They'll go on last with the pitot.

 

Here she is with that other magnificent failure of the 1980s, the Tigershark.

 

 

 

 

[heloman1]

Neat work, that under wing joint line looked like a trench! Looks like you managed to save it.

I do like the scheme and the two together look great.

I remember back in the late 1970's, I had the old Revel 1/72nd (?) scale kit. It came with an engine and dolly.

 

Colin

[bennyboi]

very nice finish, this is the first time I've seen this thread, and it looks very nice

[Thom216]

Building up a great little Fantasy Squadron!

[mechanic86]

Looks great 👍