Viper 'Duel' Build: F-16A-MLU "UAF" / F-16C "NMANG" [1:48 Kinetic vs. Tamiya]

[Alex]

These are all of the piece parts needed for the Tamiya LG, plus the very nice ResKit wheels/tires, cleaned up, detailed, and ready to paint.  There are so many that I'm running out of clips, even having made more.  So I think I'll go ahead and get these painted before starting on the Kinetic LG.

 

Adding hydraulic/electrical lines to these things again emphasizes what a relatively tiny aircraft the F-16 is, at least compared to the Soviet jets I built last year.  Working on these LG is like doing a 1:72 Flanker.

[Alex]

Looking at the white-on-white assembly of LG parts and bay, I decided that it would just never look good without some kind of wash to emphasize the detail.  This despite the fact that the LG bays you see in photos of in-service Vipers tend to be pretty spotless, and certainly devoid of the kind of accumulated "grime in the corners" implied by a pinwash.  That said, sometimes we need to do some things that are a bit unrealistic to elicit that "look" of realism in our models.  So I proceeded to gloss coat everything and hit it with dark gray Vallejo acrylic wash.  These are two shots of one side of the main LG dry fit.  Not yet flat coated either.  The photos look grayer/dirtier than the pieces do in actuality.

 

 

The level of detail is not terrible here even in the less-detailed Tamiya kit, and in a non-magnified view it actually looks pretty nice.  I will obviously wait to assemble all this for good until the fuselage paint is completed; at that point I'll glue it up, touch up any missing paint on the hoses and electrical lines, then flat-coat it.  I've also assembled and cleaned up the pylons and external fuel tanks for the Tamiya kit.  I'll be using all ResKit AM weapons, and I have not touched those yet.  I'm also most of the way through building and painting both the Tamiya ejection seat and the Eduard AM seat I'll be using for the Kinetic Viper.  Pics of those once they are complete.

 

Next I think I will shift back to the Kinetic kit and do the whole LG thing over on that one.

[Alex]

I haven't lost the plot on this one; just been real busy with travel for work.  I did manage to build the ejection seats.  For the Tamiya Viper I'm using the kit parts, augmented with belts from the Kelik cockpit set.  For the Kinetic kit, I've used an Eduard resin seat.  I probably could have just as easily gone with the Kinetic parts, but the Eduard seat came in a bundle with their resin wheels, which I definitely wanted to use.  In the below photos the Eduard seat is on the right, Tamiya on the left.  These have not yet been flat-coated, so pardon any distracting shininess...

 

 

 

 

The Eduard part definitely has more and more finely cast detail, but the biggest difference between the two is on the back, which of course won't be visible...

 

The Eduard kit provided two or three copies of all of the decals for their ejection seat, so by being careful not to screw any of them up I was able to use them to do both seats, which definitely adds to the look of the Tamiya kit parts.  

 

Maybe when I get back from this next trip I can finally get after the Kinetic landing gear...

[Alex]

Been very busy with the garden and work (the usual excuses).  I've decided to park the Kinetic kit until some real in-theatre photos of Ukrainian vipers appear (that will definitely motivate me to get that one completed).  Focusing on the Tamiya kit I'm trying to get ready to start painting.  Masked off the LG bays:

 

The canopy came with a nice big mould seam down the middle of it, so I spent some time scraping and polishing that out.  I think I'm going to take a "black base" approach to painting this one, so the next step will be priming with Black Mr. Surfacer.  Maybe I will get to that before I leave for vacation next week. 

[Derek B]

Very nice Alex! 

 

Derek