1/32 Wild Hare F-16XL, Project SCAMP WIP.

[danimalmagic]

Hi all. 

I will be aiming to complete the model specific to the period when it was handed over to NASA, circa 1988. Doing this means I can use the CJ kit for parts, if I was building a very early F-16XL I would have to use the Thunderbirds kit and the CJ kit which would be a real waste, the many reasons for this can be found as follows. 

Both of the F-16XL were modified from two of the 5, F-16FSD Prototypes, 75-0749 is the model I will be building but with the later designation of 849 when it was turned over to NASA as below. 

The second F-16XL designated 75-0747 was made up from a FSD airframe after a major nose gear failure causing extensive damage, this led to it being built as a two seat airframe. I will not get into that too much as it is not what I will be building. 

Parts so far. 
1/32 Wild Hare Resin F-16XL, rarer than hens teeth. 
1/32 F-16CJ Donor Kit, the CJ is the more appropriate kit to use for the conversion, especially with the time frame that I am looking at. Lightweight landing gear was only fitted very early on, 75-0749 was fitted with the heavy weight gear on 10 January 1983. 
Avionixs Blk 30/32 cockpit and True Details F-16A cockpit, I need to graft the two to make an early 
F-16 Blk 1-5, NB: cockpit is fitted with the ACES II Seat. 

Isracast Block 40 conversion, required for the wheels. 

Attic Flight Test Manual, essential as it has the maintenance schedules listing specific changes and dates done. 
GT Resin PW220 Burner and Flame Tube, no external difference to the 1st F-16XL PW200 that I can see other than the inlet compressor face, the second XL is fitted with the later F110-GE-100 Engine. I have the correct compressor intake face in the spares box from an Academy F-16 kit. 
Aires resin wheel bay set, just to add to the insanity. 


Issues to correct, there is a superb article on the ARC site as follows and I am combining that with the Attic Flight Test and Development Manual which is also very good. As I did with the Streak Eagle I will list out all the points I can see and then slowly work through them. I am not saying all of them will be fixable but at least I will have a target to work too. 
I am sure as I progress I will pick up some other issues as well. 
http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=143843 

1. NSI Intake, a full resin NSI intake is provided, and it is seamless to a point, essentially a direct copy of the Thunderbird kit parts. 
2. Modify nose gear bay, scratch build missing parts, cannibalize the Aires resin set. 
3. 48,00Ib landing gear was fitted to F-16XL, 849 (F-16CJ kit). 
4. Block 40 wheels. (Isracast) 
5. Bulged main gear bay doors (F-16CJ kit), resin doors supplied are of no use. 
6. Bulged gear bay doors, need to check the closing/retraction bracket arrangement. 
7. Norwegian Type Drag Chute. (supplied) 
8. Check cockpit glare shield accuracy. 
9. Leading Edge Crank/Flap Under curl/profile, need to check all spans. 
10. Thickness of ISA Booms, need to check. 
11. Nav Lights on each side of the NSI intake, reinforcement place needs to be removed. 
12. Fill seam on intake join to duct, probably not possible. 
13. Modify angle of RAM Ducts above the NSI 
14. Two small antennae required behind the nose landing gear. 
15. Two small antennae required forward of refuel point. 
16. Aces II Ejection seat, supplied with resin cockpits. 
17. Early F-16A Cockpit required, need to check for any further changes later on in the NASA program, further images required. 
18. Forward Avionics bay in front of canopy has no hinge detail, graft this area from the CJ Donor kit to rectify. 
19. Reposition the gun bay and associated ports to correct position on Portside, need to be further up slope. 
20. The panel lines for the PDU Bay , Gun Drum Bay , Gun Trough, Gun access door with vent, and, all need to be re-scribed. 
21. Gun bay Starboard side port missing, check and graft as required, graft from donor kit. 
22. Fuselage plugs details, lots of issues here, long story short to increase the length of the fuselage 2 plugs were fitted, 30†wide on forward area and 26†for the aft. In scale this has been replicated but the surface details need to be corrected on the upper surfaces, re scribe or graft. 
23. Rear fuselage lower plug Empennage Cant, quite a big problem on the underside as the plug has been positioned in the wrong place giving a much more acute angle up to the burner. I think the best option will be to cut these area out and graft in the correct details from the donor kit. 
Points 21 and 22 will make more sense when I have actually done the work. 
24. Top spine/centre line antennae missing. 
25. Top spine/centre line IFR light missing. 
26. Strap reinforcement strips each side of tail on upper fuselage, missing.(NASA onward) 
27. Reinforcement plates either side of vertical tail at beginning of reinforcement strips. 
28. Check AOA Pitot boom for shape and length, check. 
29. Throttle bulge on port side of forward fuselage, check. 
30. Extra AOA probe for the port side of the forward fuselage 
31. All TACAN/UHF/VHF/& other SI antennas, missing check. 
32. Pre bulge just fore of the MLG doors, check. 
33. C Band Beacon, check where etc, reference material. 
34. Store Separation Cameras, may not be applicable, check. 
35. Two ventral tails on the rear underside not fitted to the XL. 
36. Access panel port side below rear canopy, including vent/intake.??? 
37. Need the correct inlet compressor face, spare in Academy F-16. 
38. Port and Starboard air intake scoops, leading edge angle (Above JFS on Port side) 
39. Small probe/possible pitot top port side of tail? 

Still looking for good close up reference images for the XL, any help here would be appreciated, can't find a good walk around, especially for the cockpit. 
I have managed to get some good images off the NASA site directly and F-16.net. 

Two of my favorite aircraft, lucky buggers. 


I think that is sufficient to be going on with so enough with the procrastination and let's get stuck in. 

Thanks for Looking.

 

Danny

www.modelmasterukcom

Edited January 17, 2016 by danimalmagic

[danimalmagic]

I have decided to get the difficult bits out of the way first, once these are done then it will make the remaining work easier. 
The nose detail on the resin part is completely wrong, shape is ok but the scribed detail is incorrect. 

The easiest solution is to graft the nose section from the CJ kit onto the resin part, this is the CJ kit part, the surface detail is way too tough to re scribe, well for me anyway. 

Grafted into place. 

RHAWS antennae's either side removed, job done. 


Thanks for looking.

Regards

Danny Attree
www.modelmasteruk.com

[danimalmagic]

Next we come to one of the biggest issues with the kit, in order to extend the standard airframe two plugs where installed. The rear underside plug should be directly behind the landing gear bulkhead as below. 

Unfortunately this has been done the wrong way around on the resin kit and must be corrected. 

With the JFS/CSD panel being pushed that far back it steepens the Cant angle of the Empennage which looks terrible and is completely wrong. If you go to the ARC link mentioned earlier you will get a better explanation of the issue. 

Re scribing is just not an option so the only thing to do is cut out the area needing correction and graft in the correct parts from the donor kit. On a normal kit this is a bit risky but with the Wild Hare kit and its rarity, messing it up would not be good. 
So with a certain amount of trepidation I removed the required section with a razor saw keeping exactly to the panel lines. 

Next I carefully cut the JFS/CSD panel from the donor kit filing to the panel line on each side to get an accurate fit. Once that was done I could fit it to the resin body. 

Empennage Cant is much better already. 

The next step is to put the plug back into the correct position, I could not use the resin plug I cut out as it was from further along the empennage and the profile is wrong for the area next to the landing gear bulkhead. 
Only real option is to use to the resin JFS/CSD panel already removed, I filled all the surface detail and then carefully fitted this back in position as the plug. 

That is that problem sorted, with a bit of careful bench fitting and repeated test fitting I have got the parts back in place with no horrible gaps to fill. This was not a five minute job but it needed to be done and I am quite pleased with the result. 
I still need to do a little more work adding some rivet and surface details to the plug and attaching the RAM intakes each side but I will come to that next week.

One thing that also made it a little tougher is making sure that the fit to the resin gear bay remained the same, so far so good. 



Thanks for looking.

Regards

Danny Attree
www.modelmasteruk.com

[danimalmagic]

Next up is the missing surface detail on the top of the resin fuselage, this is quite grim and yet again re scribing for most of it is just is not an option. 
This is the area around the gun bay, although the gun would not be present at this timeline the panelling would be. 

I have cut out the relevant section from the donor kit and this will be very careful grafted to the resin fuselage. I have checked and the detail is correct for the XL with the exception of the larger round raised detail, I need to double check but if it needs to be removed later it will not be an issue. 

First I need to make a space, the kit part should fit exactly as the master was the Tamiya C kit, it is just a matter of carefully filing up to the panel lines, I left myself plenty of material to work. 

Dry fitted in position. 

Once I have set the main panel in place and cleaned it up I moved on the smaller square exhaust panel for the M-61. Again this area is the same size as the Tamiya kit part so it is a matter of cutting out a neat hole to the pre-existing panel lines. 

Then fitting the kit part, any minor gaps have been filled with S/Glue and sanded back. 

Next the gun trough, you may be wondering why I am doing one part at a time well there is good reason for that. It is more risky to cut the whole area straight out and do the same for the donor parts as you will get a compounded error making it much more difficult to get a good fit. 
Doing each panel individually means I am only needing to correct any minor issues with that one part which is much easier so to speak. 

Muzzle cover done, you can actually see how far out the old muzzle port was, I have filled that with an old bit of sprue. 


I still have a great deal more to do on the surface yet and I need to clean up the panels already fitted to get a nice neat seamless effect. 

Still not bad for a first week, more of the same for the coming week as I need to graft in another missing vent on the starboard side of the gun bay. I suspect I will pick up some more issues as well, with luck I can get the intake sorted and fitted as well as the gear bay but we will see. 


Thanks for looking.

Regards

Danny Attree
www.modelmasteruk.com

[Dandiego]

Wow, super cool. I will be watching this closely. This is the type of project that I love to work on. Hope to pick up a few pointers from your work.

 

Dan

[Guest]

Wow this super! And your explanation of steps is great! Following with interest....Harv

[danimalmagic]

Wow, super cool. I will be watching this closely. This is the type of project that I love to work on. Hope to pick up a few pointers from your work.

 

Dan

 

Well there is a massive amount to do yet, nearly every single area needs attention in one way or another plus the resin cockpit conversion, next report will be a week today.

 

Thanks for Looking.

 

Danny

[danimalmagic]

Wow this super! And your explanation of steps is great! Following with interest....Harv

 

Thanks Harv, you will not see this kit built too often so i will do a weekly round up, a long way to go yet. 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Danny

[Guest Peterpools]

Danny

Fantastic project ... totally am enjoying following your progress and understanding each step as you go.

Keep 'em coming

peter

[Martinnfb]

nice!

[LSP_Kevin]

Well, that's just awesome work, Danny! And already looking to be up to your usual high standards.

 

Kev

[Zero77]

That's a crazy project !

Good luck, i'll try to follow this one, definitely interesting !

[Chek]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes.

Though as with the late block types with conformal tanks, I prefer the two-seater versions, as they look more 'balanced',

[danimalmagic]

I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes.

Though as with the late block types with conformal tanks, I prefer the two-seater versions, as they look more 'balanced',

.

 

Try this.

 

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=45210&hl=

 

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=44949&hl=

 

 

 

Danny

Edited January 18, 2016 by danimalmagic

[danimalmagic]

That's a crazy project !

Good luck, i'll try to follow this one, definitely interesting !

 

Thanks mate, it certainly will be a challenge.

 

Danny