1/48 Hasegawa Lockheed Martin F-16B Fighting Falcon - No 2 Sqn RNZAF - HMAS Albatross October 2003

 

In 1998 the New Zealand Government announced it was to lease 28 F-16A/B Fighting Falcons to replace the RNZAF's aging A-4K Skyhawks. The aircraft  were  Block 15OCU variants that had been bought by the Pakistani Air Force but embargoed following development their nuclear capacity.  More on the lease can be found here.

This model assumes the Labour Government didn't cancel the "Deal of the Century" in 2002.

It is depicted as an aircraft about to depart on a training sortie with units of the RAAF and RAN, this was 2 Sqn's main role when operating Skyhawks based at HMAS Albatross on the South cost of NSW, Australia.

The Build

This is the Hasegawa F-16B kit. It's been built basically out of the box with the addition. The kit goes together reasonably well although I had a bit of trouble getting a decent fit with intake. Apart from that it was reasonably straight forward. 

The pictures below show the kit cockpit which I thought was pretty good. I have no idea how accurate it is but the level of detail was good enough for me. Especially as I intended to have the canopy closed and the pilots fitted. With the pilots fitted I couldn't get the throttle fitted but you can't see it.

The ACMI pod and AGM-65 Maverick come from various Hasegawa's weapons sets. The LAU-117 was scratch built from an old missile rail found in the spares box. The CATM-9M was built from on the crap kit sidewinder. The Training AIM-120 is from the kit but I added the strip of plastic as every AIM-120 I saw had it.

Finishing

If the RNZAF had actually received the aircraft they would have come in their original Pakistani camouflage, which differs (and looks more attractive IMHO) from the standard USAF grey scheme. However I wanted to do something different so I went for the Euro 1  colour scheme of the RNZAF A-4K's. The pattern on the aircraft is basically that used when the USAF trialled the Charcoal Lizard on the F-16 in the late 1980's but with the dark green (FS34092) replaced with FS34079.

The kit was painted with Gunze Acrylics., Colours used were 301 (FS36081), 303 (FS 34102) and 309 (FS34079). The radome is Tamyia Satin black. I do like the Gunze paints but they seem to take an age (like weeks) to harden which means they are susceptible to fingerprints. After painting a coal of Kleer was applied prior to decaling.

The exhaust was painted with model master metalisers. I just used the colours that looked right as just about every picture of an exhaust I looked at had different shades.

The canopy was originally tinted with Tamyia smoke on the front half and clear on the back half. Unfortunately when I pulled that tape off it damaged the smoked part. So I stripped it and used a mixture of Kleer with black and yellow food colouring. It looked good when I'd finished it (see above) but now it appears to faded so I can't really notice the tint which I'm disappointed at. I've successfully fought the urge to redo it though.

The decals are the kit decals with the RNZAF specific markings coming from the Hasegawa A-4K kit. After decaling a enamel panel wash was applied and then a coat of flat. Some pastel chalks were used to add some streaks and then another coat of flat..

Now you'd think I'm nearly finished well it took another 2 weekends because I had a serious attack of AMS and kept trying to fix some minor imperfections (mainly ones that only I could see). This resulted in a fair few touch ups including the complete nose section and part of the wing and some major frustrations. Eventually I finally came to my senses and have got it to a standard I can live with (just).

The Photos