Tamiya F-16 Aggressor, Kicked Up a Notch, April 11/24: Lighting Details

[ScoobyDoo]

Congrats again on the retirement, great to see you this summer.

 

Thanks for the advice for my son, in regards to his engineering degree.

 

I look forward to this build and getting to see it in person.

[Squizzy 78]

Awesome build Chuck!

I’d expect the sales of Tamiya F-16’s to go through the roof now in an attempt to follow your instruction and achieve your results! I’ll be nothing near your results, but I’ll be using your instructions to build a viper in the future! 

[spyrosjzmichos]

Always excited every time I see a "kicked up a notch" series! Looking forward to another masterpiece Chuck! 

[Memphis]

On 10/27/2022 at 11:14 PM, Zola25 said:

 

Oh 

I am sure you are being very precise, but anyone building this needs to make sure that the Aires Wheelbay is centered exactly. If not, you will find that just 1mm offset on the centerline will quickly translate to 4-5mm at the wingtips. This will result in a very noticable tilt when the finished model sits on its landing gear.

 

/Niels

Great advice! Thanks!

Edited November 2, 2022 by Memphis

[ax365]

Good morning, Chuck.  Sorry that I'm a little late to the party.  I hope you had a wonderful summer and that you managed to put a few miles on the little roadster.  The Mustang got a bit of a workout but nothing too strenuous.  A few friends and family have lamented about the snow you've received already.  Ack!

 

Although it's unlikely I'll ever build an F-16, I'll be following along, as usual, as the tips, hints and suggestions you bring to the masses are usually transferable to any other build.  I've benefited from your sage advice so thank you for that.

 

Also, congratulations on the occasion of your retirement.  Enjoy the next chapter of life's journey.  I start year eight of it in January and to bastardize the old Canadian Armed Forces recruiting slogan, Retirement...there's no life like it.  Does it feel like retirement yet or do you still feel like you're on a really extended vacation?

 

Take care Chuck and I look forward to your updates.

 

Mike

[zaxos345]

Awesome start Chuck!!! Another beauty from your hands!!!

 

John 

[scvrobeson]

Congrats on the retirement Chuck!  May we all reach that happy point.  Really looking forward to seeing this Falcon build, I know that you'll do an incredible job on it.

 

 

 

Matt

[blackbetty]

another one to watch closely!

[chuck540z3]

November 9/22

 

 

No modeling update, but I did a little more “research” of my subject at the Aviation Nation Air Show at Nellis AFB this past weekend, hoping to see the Ghost scheme once again on the tarmac so that I could take more reference pics.  Well, 84-220 wasn’t on the ground, but 86-299 was, although it was roped off and made it hard to take pics, especially directly into the sun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, the reason 84-220 wasn’t on the ground was because it was flying!, when they do a sort of mock war games with several other fighter jets and ground attack aircraft.  This jet is obviously a “bad guy”, but man is it pretty.  Note that the digital camo-scheme is slightly different from jet to jet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh-oh, an F-22 closing in for a kill!

 

 

 

 

Although I couldn’t get close-up reference pics, I sure got some good shots of the underside to help me with the camo-pattern of the bottom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just beautiful, and a real boost of inspiration to build this particular model.

 

 

 

 

Like most air show photography nuts, I took about 2,000 pictures which were mostly duplicates, when taking action shots at 12 frames per second- and deleted about 1,650 of them, leaving 350 that I’ll keep.  I have posted a few of them in the Aviation Forum here if you’re interested.

 

 

Nellis AFB Aviation Nation Air Show '22

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited November 10, 2022 by chuck540z3

[Alex]

Those are some fantastic photos!  Thanks for sharing them.

[EmK]

I love your builds Chuck, I've been lurking here for a while (I'm not creepy honest!) Just signed up, first post. Love to see the "Kicked up a notch" title. Going to Nellis for the air shows, man I'm jealous! I don't have any 32nd builds, no room, I live in a shoebox lol so nothing to post. Do you have any older builds that are no longer on LSP? In reguards to the photos those are awesome! I noticed the ghost painted chocks too, I think that would be a neat touch for a display IMHO.

[chuck540z3]

December 6/22

 

 

Not much in the way of modeling lately for the reasons described above.  Now that I’m retired, I’m finding less time to model rather than more time to do so, which comes as a big surprise to me.  Who knew!?

 

 

I have love/hate feelings about certain parts of a model build and one of them is landing gear assembly and painting.  I hate doing it, but I usually love the final results, so I decided to get this stage of the model over with.  Landing gear usually has a lot of seam marks, sometimes pin marks and they are all hard to remove due to the cylindrical nature of the gear legs and fine detail of all the attachments.  This kit is no exception, except the main parts are all metal, which makes them even harder to clean up.  Here’s the main landing gear from the rear, which shows all of the above problems.  Nothing too difficult to clean up, but still a PITA.

 

 

 

 

I find that sanding sticks work the best on metal landing gear, especially fairly coarse grits like this #400 one.  Once the main lumps have been eroded off, I finish them off with #800 sanding sticks or just plain sandpaper.  Here’s the front of the gear, with a few of the kit plastic parts attached in Step 9, then smoothed out.

 

 

 

 

The rear with all those pin marks, which were sanded then filled with CA glue, then sanded smooth.  Since the glue is clear, you can’t tell if I was successful or not, until I apply a first coat of primer.  The nose gear at the top was also given the same treatment. 

 

 

 

 

The other thing I hate about landing gear is resin wheels, with parts that are hard to cut off casting blocks cleanly.  Having said that, I love how they look when assembled and painted, because they give a lot more detail than the kit parts, especially the tire.  Like the ResKit wheels I used on my CF-104 build, the center of each tire is solid, so you glue the wheel hubs to it, rather than fit them within a hollow tire like you would with Barracuda resin wheels.  As indicated, this wheel set is for Block 25/32 Vipers, which is the “lightweight” gear on these early jets, and not the “heavyweight” gear found on Block 40+ F-16’s.

 

 

 

Cut off the casting blocks, the wheels need to be sanded down from behind in order to fit the tire properly.  The kit part is also shown for a comparison of detail.

 

 

 

 

I’ve found that the easiest way to sand the wheels is to simply rub them over a coarse foam sanding block.  You can’t push down on them too hard, however, or you will get curved edges to the wheel.  Take your time and do it gently.

 

 

 

 

Same with the front of each wheel.

 

 

 

One annoying feature of the front wheels is the part number stamp on the lip, which makes the rim super thin and fragile.  I broke one of them, but was able to repair it with some CA glue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A dry fit comparison to the kit wheel and vinyl tire, so show detail differences and the size of each tire/wheel.  The resin tire is obviously a bit taller…

 

 

 

And a bit wider…

 

 

 

 

The resin wheels also need a hole drilled into them to accommodate the gear axles.  This hole must be perfectly straight or you risk cutting off some of the supporting sidewall, so I use small drill bits followed by larger ones to adjust the hole accordingly.  This pic also shows that the tie-down loop, for lack of a better name, is missing on the resin wheel.  I double checked the kit package and 2 other Reskit wheels sets I have in the stash, and no such loop exists as a seperate part.  I wonder what ResKit was thinking?

 

 

 

 

Here’s the right wheel on a Block 32 Aggressor I took a few years ago, showing what the loop looks like and its position.

 

 

 

 

I was going to create a loop out of wire, when I thought why not just cut the loop off the kit parts instead?  It worked pretty good I think- and is strong.

 

 

 

 

As in the pic of the real deal above, this is where the loop should be located at about 45-60 degrees, along with the rest of the wheel.  As noted above, those pin marks on the gear legs have been filled with CA glue (I hope!).

 

 

 

The nose gear resin wheel presented a different challenge, because the wheel does not slide onto an axle hole like the main landing gear, because it is held in place by a metal screw instead. 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the front of the wheel, showing that the axle fits flush to the wheel and not within it, held by the screw.  I suppose I could have figured out a way to attach the resin wheel parts in a similar fashion, but since the kit parts aren’t really inferior, why not use them instead?

 

 

 

Here I simply cut out the middle of the tire.

 

 

 

 

And slid the kit wheel inside, keeping the function of the wheel intact and the form of the detailed tire.  I have noted the tiny Part F 56 which is not glued and free floating, which is almost impossible to find on the sprue.  It is located just above Part F 16 for some reason.

 

 

 

 

The landing/taxi lights will be attached near the end of the build to avoid breakage and yes, my jet likely still has them attached to the main landing gear. 

 

 

 

 

According to the Modern Viper Guide by Jake Melampy, these lights were removed from the main gear and a different light complex was attached to the front landing gear door instead on all Block 40+ jets, while earlier Block 25/30/32 jets will have the lights changed to the same configuration at some point in the future.  After checking out a number of pics I took at Nellis of Aggressor Vipers, including this past month, there are no hard rules as to which F-16 lights have been changed and which ones have not.  Some examples:

 

 

Here's the twin to my subject, which is 86-0299, a Block 32, with the same Ghost paint scheme that I took in November.  Note the lack of a light on the main gear, but a couple of rectangular lights on the front gear door (there should be 2 double lights).

 

 

 

 

Right next to the above jet is another Aggressor, 83-1159, a Block 25 jet with the “retro” light configuration.

 

 

 

 

My subject, 84-1220 which is also a Block 25 jet, was flying that day, so there was no opportunity to take pics of its landing gear.  I did take a pic of it back in 2019, however, and it doesn’t appear to have a taxi light on the front gear door, despite the poor angle of this shot.  I have checked other photos on the ‘net of this jet and they all appear to have the same legacy light configuration.

 

 

 

 

 

For fun, I checked out an old pic I took in 2007 of 87-0307, another Block 32, which has the legacy lights.  If you look at newer pics of this jet today, they were changed by at least 2016

 

 

 

 

For anybody wanting to check out a specific F-16 and what Block it is, the F-16.net website is a gold mine for this and a lot of other Viper information

 

 

F-16.net Serial Number Database

 

 

So that’s it for now and I hope that although this update was fairly small and brief, it gave you some information that you might not have been aware of.  I know that I've sure learned a lot recently!

 

 

Cheers,

Chuck

Edited December 6, 2022 by chuck540z3

[Memphis]

Hello Chuck. Reskit's products look very good. I have several sets and F-16 wheels too. A rubber wheel will give a realistic view of the load. But who provides the exact size? Reskit or Tamiya?

[Greif8]

First, congratulations on your retirement Chuck, I hope you have many, many happy years in front of you to enjoy it.  Your work and the documentation of that work is superb as always!  My oldest son finishes his apprenticship as a computer assisted graphics designer this coming summer; maybe he can teach me to do what you are able to do when it comes to documenting your build progress as it is first rate.   

 

Ernest   

[JayW]

Chuck - first time I have ever followed a jet build.  And I thought I knew something about F-16's....not a thing.  The light configuration is fascinating.  For some reason, I find configuration changes on aircraft as they evolve, and modelling of same, very interesting.  I like getting it right.  So do you, obviously. 

 

Landing gear are among my favorite subjects, at least in large scales.  In smaller scales, well they just get very challenging!  Especially the torque links.  Your repair skills (I have seen them in action in other builds you have done) are remarkable.  Pretty sure your gear are going to look like shrink ray real deals.