Snow Day Build

[Sisko]

Man that is one funky scheme!

I like it.

[DropBear]

Very nice affect there.


Looks well worth the time and effort you put into it.

[AeroplaneDriver]

Well she's done!

No pics tonight because the camera batteries are dead, but I'll post some tomorrow morning.

I ended up doing the full pixel scheme on the lower surfaces too, so I'm estimating about 500 decals total!  Altogether the decaling took about 16 hours.

When I originally started this build with the intention of making it a naval aircraft I was going to fit a Martin-Baker seat from a Monogram Mirage 2000.  After changing back to a US F-16 I needed an ACES II seat since the kit seat was a poor representation of something between an ESCAPAC and an ACES.  Fortunately I had a seat from Revell's excellent F-15E painted up and ready to go.

It is mounted inflight on a brass rod in a wooden base, sporting an inert AIM-9L on the right wing and a scratchbuild ACMI pod on the left.  The pod is a poorly shaped Hobbycraft AIM-9L with the fins cut off and a stretched sprue nose.  

I made the nose pitot out of a sewing needle, and still plan on adding stretched sprue static wicks to the elevator, rudder, and ailerons, but htat little bit of detialing can wait until morning.

Anyhoo...I'm still not 100% sure I love the camo, but it is different.  The poor F-16 is much maligned on here, I think because it has been cursed with such dull RW paint schemes and is soooooo overdone among the non-whiff modeling community.  This build was a good way to remember that it really is a beautiful aircraft though, and it reminded me of how much I loved the F-16 when I was a kid in the early 80s who dreamed of being a pilot someday.

Pics tomorrow!!

[BlackOps]

The poor F-16 is much maligned on here, I think because it has been cursed with such dull RW paint schemes and is soooooo overdone among the non-whiff modeling community.  This build was a good way to remember that it really is a beautiful aircraft though, and it reminded me of how much I loved the F-16 when I was a kid in the early 80s who dreamed of being a pilot someday.

I have to agree, the F-16 really is a cool bird, I think the fact that it is so common is what makes folks forget just how nice she really is. Our local ANG wing flies F-16's and I still think they rock.

Looking forward to seeing your final pics, that's a whole lotta decals!