Tamiya 1/48 F-16C Aggressor

[Lemonstein]

Hi All

 

First post here, and it's not Large Scale so already not a great start  

Here are some photos of my Tamiya 1/48 F-16 built up as an Aggressor aircraft based at Nellis AFB. The Tamiya F-16 is about as nice a kit as you can get in 1/48 (certainly better than the GWH F-15E I just finished), but I added some additional details, which if I'm honest probably weren't worth it:

• Aires F-16C/N Cockpit - although the detail is amazing, the fit of the resin cockpit in the kit was pretty poor. I had to thin down the kit parts so much to get it to fit, so I suspect it wasn't designed for the Tamiya kit despite being sold as such. Also since so little of the cockpit is actually visible I'm not sure all that work was necessary
• Aires F-16C Wheel bays - again I'm not sure they were meant for this kit despite what the packaging says and since they aren't that visible from most angles I should've probably skipped them and stuck with the kit parts
• Aires F-16 exhaust nozzle - this was a drop in replacement for the kit parts and is so much more detailed that I think it was worth it!

 

Aside from the Aires resin pieces I also used a mask kit from DN models (excellent) and TwoBobs decals (also excellent). I chose this scheme partly because I found a lot of good photos of this aircraft (85-418) and partly because it doesn't have multi-colour walkway lines so I didn't have to worry about lining up the camo colours with the decals 

 

 

 

The ordinance under the wings is from Meng, specifically from their recent US Air-to-Air missile sets. These are really nicely moulded one piece missiles, and the decals are also very good. The only changes I made were the blue inert missile stripes which were painted on since the Meng set comes with the yellow/brown live missile decals. The ACMI pod is from the Tamiya kit.

 

 

The TwoBobs decals were excellent - perfect colour, minimal film and they settled down very well with some decal solution. They were also tough enough to withstand some poking to get them to go into the panel lines. Even the tiny name decals on the canopy are easily legible. They even included the tiny star decal for the HUD surround.

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[Uncarina]

Absolutely beautiful job finishing one of my favorite schemes for the F-16! And Welcome To The Forums! Very impressive debut.

 

Cheers,  Tom

[LSP_K2]

Very nice.

[Lemonstein]

5 hours ago, Uncarina said:

Absolutely beautiful job finishing one of my favorite schemes for the F-16! And Welcome To The Forums! Very impressive debut.

 

Cheers,  Tom

Thanks Tom - yeah it's a great scheme, up there with the Arctic Aggressor schemes, but this one's easier to paint! Thanks for the welcome  

1 hour ago, LSP_K2 said:

Very nice.

Cheers Kevin!

[AlbertD]

That sure is a beautiful model. Can you please tell what paint you used? Especially the blue. Thank you.

[Lemonstein]

4 hours ago, AlbertD said:

That sure is a beautiful model. Can you please tell what paint you used? Especially the blue. Thank you.

Thanks Albert!

Sure, I used a mix of Vallejo and AK Interactive acrylics:

White: Vallejo Model Air 71.119

Blue: Vallejo Model Air 71.111 - this is their version of FS35109 which is apparently the colour the USAF actually uses (At least according to the TwoBobs decal sheet which is the only place I found that info)

Grey: AK Interactive FS36251 Aggressor Grey (it's misspelled "Agressor grey" on the bottle in case you try to search for it  

Nose cone: AK Interactive FS36270 Medium Grey

 

I think there were some other colours here and there for the cockpit and wheel bays, but those above are the main ones.

 

Cheers

Edited May 26, 2020 by Lemonstein

[Squizzy 78]

Awesome viper, it’s hard to go past an aggressor! Very well done