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Hey guys, how about a big Flanker...? Sorry I'm late, but still, there is plenty of time for that big bird..... not planning to do fancy stuff nor scratch... for now.. I'm going to use Wolfpack pit, Linden Hill decal, Aerobonus pilot and maybe I'll try some Reskit after market like their Exhaust and twin store carrier.... . Had that huge box on my top shelf for over 10 years or so..... Wasn't sure about doing the version in the kit, until I got my hand on that Linden Hill sheet from a resaler at Ajax contest. The ''George and Dragon''..... Blue 43. So let's start timidly.... with the pit.. I always start with a solid XF-69, once dry, I'll put a few layers of clear coat before the wash step... Will do more this week-end, thanks for watching and have fun. Dan.

I should really be moving on to something else but I just can’t resist tackling my third F-16. I started on the Academy two-seater back when I was doing my F-16A and I have been building some subassemblies here and there as made synergistic sense with the other F-16’s. For example, the canopy is polished, Future-dipped and good to go. The (Tamiya) tanks are done with a first coat of paint on them, the ACMI pod is entirely complete, the AIM-9CATM is almost done, the Zacto intake is already painted white inside and the Aires wheel well is ready to be dropped in. In short, I think completing this model will take less than half the time it will take me to do the Legendary Grumman Product project I have lined up next. Here is the exact aircraft I will be doing (pic has free for use rights): I will be using the AFV Club F-16B kit, which is essentially the Academy kit with all the plastic that you would get with the various variants of that plus some resin parts. The most important parts for what will be an F-16D Block 30 are the correct wheels required for a Block 30 and also the non-bulged main landing gear doors. I will use the heavyweight legs when I should be using lightweight main gear but I honestly find it almost impossible to recognize the difference. More important is that I don’t need to use the bulged main gear doors of the kit, which look off from far away (more on that later). I will be using the Two Bobs Arctic Aggressor sheet together with some custom serial number decals and a second red/yellow “6” from the spares box and that should be about it as far as turning this into a Block30 Aggressor. The Tamiya F-16 kit is generally superior to the Academy kit but the Academy kit has some advantages. And of course it is the only two-seater in town. Here is my summary of the ADVANTAGES of the Academy kit (roughly in order of importance): 1. Zacto makes beautiful small and big mouth intakes for the Academy F-16. These are drop-and-go and do away with the tedious seam-filling required for the Tamiya kit. 2. The Aires wheel well fits absolutely perfectly into this kit. I would speculate that Aires designed the set for the Academy kit and then only modified the little panel between the bays for the Tamiya kit. I would strongly advise against using the Aires set on the Tamiya kit, the fit is poor requiring a chain reaction of modifications. 3. The wing leading edge is molded as part of the wing. For the Tamiya kit, I find that the separately produced leading edge is difficult to glue in such that the gap, especially around the hinges, is perfectly neat and consistent. No such worries on the Academy kit. 4. Academy added some nice detail in places where Tamiya didn’t provide any, e.g. on the underside of the center wing pylons. And here are some of what I consider to be must-fix problems of the Academy kit. I am sure there are plenty of additional inaccuracies on the kit but these are the ones that I consider to be too glaring to ignore: 1. The kit intake is spaced too close to the fuselage. Apparently the intake is also misshapen but I have a hard time recognizing that. This is a must-fix issue in my book but fortunately Zacto has turned vice into virtue with his fantastic intakes. 2. The Academy gun muzzle has the slots vertical instead of being slightly slanted back. To my eye this makes the kit look wrong from across the room because this error is right in the focal point of the model. You can address this problem a few different ways and Academy supplies two muzzles so you can mess around a little to see what works. I ended up throwing money at the problem and bought the respective sprue from the Tamiya kit, the Tamiya muzzle fits into the Academy kit almost perfectly. Going the Tamiya route will also ensure a consistent look as my various F-16’s are displayed together. 3. The Academy wingtip and outer wing launch rails (LAU-129) are far too skinny. Simple fix is to use some Tamiya LAU-129’s from the spares box. 4. The bulged main gear doors look way too bulged. I didn’t need these anyway but I think these could just be sanded down to get a better look. And with that, I am launching this thread! More to follow… Cheers, Marcel

here my entry for this groupbuild What im going to use the old tamiya F-14A i know lot off work ahaed but im looking forward to do this I love the F-14 and also the camo so what can go wrong A lot off scribbing ahaed The kit and aftermarket Mark

hello everyone, this will be my second 1/32 planes to be build so far, in the market there are only 2 sabres in 1/32 scale, one by Hasegawa and the other by Italeri, between the two Italeri is the best so far in detail, but it have lots of problems with the molded pieces and some fitting issues, will see how it turns out. For this one i will use some AM stuff, all resin pieces, the cockpit, wheel wells,airbrakes, and metal pitot tube. I have found some injection problems in some of the big pieces, for example in the aft part of the fuselage some panel lines and rivets are almost invisible due to poor injection pressure into the mold, it will be shown in pictures later one, and some distortion on the wing upper surface due to the same problem before. So far i just did some cockpit work, the sabre cockpit is really plain in details, not much knobs on the side panel, and the panels and knobs are all in black color, so i used my imagination and to give some contrast and life to the side panels i used some data decals around some knobs so it wont look plain and toyish in apperance about the instrument panel, it is the old fashion way, a front pohotoetch cover (to flat in detail) and an acetate face in the back for instrument dials (at least this will give the look of glass cover in the instruments, not the best panel ever made but in the model it look quite in scale and real and here you can see the shine on the instruments looking like real glass