AFV Club F-16AM

Getting a start on this. The kit cockpit parts aren't terrible. May have to go back and redo the belts, never been a fan of molded-on ones. 

Not terrible, except for the infiltating cat hair and cotton swab bits.
 

Needs a little more work on the "glass" and to add the control stick details. 

 

Like I said, decent seat except for the belts. Shame all the detail and shading on the lower part of the seat will be hidden once installed. 

After research, there appears to be no set color scheme for the ACES II seat so I went with what I thought looked plausible. 

 

The kit betrays its Academy origins. Weird parts breakdown, very few if any locating aids and over ambitious engineering that nevertheless manages to fit OK but will still require a fair amount of work.  

Like a lot of their other models, the Academy parts fit but the molding isn't up to Tamiya, so the soft edges and not-quite-90-degree angles mean that there's quite a bit of slop. 

Minimal filler should be needed.  

Starting the wiring process for main gear bay. This is going to take a while as the Academy part is fairly devoid of detail. Should look suitably busy when finished.  

The original Academy kit is an F-16C and this kit is a late-block F-16A with a different base to the tail, including a brake chute. AFV Club's solution was to just give you a resin tail replacement which is...not that great. The actual stabilizer on the resin piece is thin and was warped on my example but since at least that part was the same between the two, I just grafted the original plastic part on to the resin base. Super glue helped fill the gaps and shape the front rake and it looks fine under a primer coat. 

It's not quite up to Seamless Sucker's standards, but the intake seam was taken care of. 

Lots of nose weight in this one. 

Still a little more wiring to add to the gear bay. 

The resin tail actually fit pretty well. The base of the resin part is taking some fitting though. Hoorah for sanding. 

Airframe is starting to come together at least. Not a big fan of removable panels, to be honest. Unless they're Tamiya, they always look somewhat off and the panel lines don't match, not to mention the steps between parts you sometimes get. Fortunately, by carefully adding really thin CA, it flowed into the panel gaps and closed them up some and a little scribing with a razor saw got them to match pretty well. 

Reference photo for the exhaust, taken at Camp Mabry, (Austin, TX). 

More reference. This is going to require some careful masking and tiny tape strips. At least it's 1/32! 

This bird is an A model, so that's a nice bonus. 

No actual engine though. Still, it's given me some ideas on how to replicate the exhaust marks/streaks, stay tuned. 

Another good ref for the tailfeathers. 

Progress on the exhaust. Could not figure out a way to get rid of the unfortunate seam line that wouldn't destroy more detail than it would save.
 

Shows up better in real life, but the subtle streaking and tones turned out pretty well.
 

This is what I'm going for. Using online images for color reference is always chancy, but note the slight greenish tint to the turbine blades and the shiny afterburner injection ring (possibly a recently-replaced part?) 

Slight heat stains on the otherwise shiny ring, which I added from copper wire and painted with some enamel chrome paint.  

The nice thing about jet exhausts is that there's no set way to do it and you can play with various methods until it looks right. Now on to the actual tailfeathers... 

Ordered a canopy mask for this bird so while I am waiting I decided to get started on the loadout. The Academy missiles aren't bad but ended up being a lot of masking what with all the fins, nosecones and stripes that I decided not to use the decals for. 

Level of detail is decent and tried out some of the GSI "super metallic" colors (on the tailfin pivots). Verdict: 👍 Look as good as alclads and more user-friendly.  

Need a better camera, the phone is not wanting to focus! 

The AIM-9Xs in the kit lack the rocket motor guide vanes, which are a pretty prominent feature on the 9X, so added them with some thin plastic sheet. Again, looks better in focus! 

The kit missiles just have a plain plastic end. Since I can't leave well enough alone, I chopped those off, then carefully applied some UV-curing resin to the end, turned the missile upside down so the "drop" formed a nice and consistent dome, then hit it with the UV. Turned out pretty well and a lot easier than building up CA glue then polishing. You can get the stuff cheap on eBay so give it a try, I think you'll like it but it might be harder to pull off in 1/48 scale. 

The IR sensor underneath is a bit of thin plastic card punched out, glued in place then painted with super metallic stainless and hit with some clear green. I did all this according to references, but did not account for the fact that the UV resin was so uniform that it formed an actual lens and so magnified the inner part so you can't see the edges of the "sensor!" Lesson learned but at least it still looks better than a solid plastic end.
 

 

Been a while! Black basing makes it a temporary Bat-plane. 

Upper works doodle coat almost done. This along with the underside took forever, and a day. 

Underside doodle coat. I am heartily sick of looking at various shades of grey! 

Blend coats for camo done, now on to gloss and decals. 

Different angle, different light tones. The RoCAF F-16s have a bit of a different camo. The radome on most other F-16s seems to be a different color but on these birds is the same light color as the rest of its camo, just a different tone, which I tried to replicate here by darkening the base camo a touch. 

The doodle coat is showing through just enough. Should pop a little more with a wash and some light weathering. The RoCAF F-16s also do not have a hard demarcation between camo colors on the tail. 

Top view. The static dischargers in the kit were not great, way overscale and would have been broken off ten times over during the painting, so I stole an idea from the Innder Nerd youtube channel and used some individual toothbrush bristles after drilling holes in the bases. Seems to work pretty well and they are flexible so they may go out of kilter but they won't break. 

Underside. Did I mention I'm sick of grey paint? 😉 

Pretty much done except for some light streaking. The armament took forever but it's done and looks decent. Considering it's a ROCAF bird, the harpoon loadout is kind of apropos! 

The missiles took a while but I like the way they came out. The wingtip lights were drilled out for a "bulb" and connected with a wire to each other since drilling took out the little plastic mounting pin. 

Disaster strikes. Masking for a few fluid streaks on the rudder and bam, off comes the decal. Should have made sure of my clear coat I guess.  

Fortunately a solution is at hand in the form of extra decals, but it will require a little surgery. 

First surgical step complete. I really hate these decals, what's up AFV Club? They're extremely thin but don't conform well and yet are extremely delicate at the same time, also while not sticking. Cartograf has spoiled me for sure. Still you gotta work with what you have. 

About ready to pull the mask off the tailfeathers and canopy. Always a chancy moment. 

Done, finally! 

Canopy turned out with no cracks or smudges. 

Kept weathering to a minimum. The ROACF birds are somewhat long in the tooth, but well-maintained. Still, every fast bird is going to have a few streaks and stains. 

 

One nice thing is I didn't need to mask the "bird slicer" antennas as references show them the fuselage color. 

 

 

 

Pretty happy with the exhaust. Not bad for kit parts! 

The ALQ-184 pod hardly gets seen tucked under there. 

The ordnance took a while... 

UV-curing resin is great stuff. Those formation lights would have been a pain as the clear parts are tiny and prone to glue smudges. Just put some paint in the cavity, drop of resin then hit it with some UV and presto. 

 

 

Same stuff used for the AIM-9X seeker windows. Much nicer than a silver-painted plastic part.