1/48 Hasegawa F-16A

Gallery Article by Drewe Manton

 

This F-16AM (Viper MLU) is made from the Hasegawa 1/48th kit. Quite a bit of work was needed to make the basic F-16A into an MLU aircraft. The interior needed bringing up to more or less F-16C block-40 standard, with changes required to the instrument panel and the cockpit painted black as opposed to the more normal grey. The seat is the one from the kit detailed with plastic card, foil and wire. 

 

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Airframe additions include "Bird Slicer" IFF added in front of the canopy, LAU-129 missile launchers scratchbuilt from plastic card for the wingtip and underwing stations Carapace ECM suite added under the intake and to the extended tail faring.  Some wiring and other detail added to the wheel bays/undercarriage.  ALQ-131 ECM pod on centreline and AIM-9L's underwing from Hasegawa weapons set Underwing tanks from Italeri F-16 GBU-12 Paveway II LGB's from Italeri F-16D (detailed with plastic card) AIM-120 AMRAAM's are Hasegawa but detailed and cleaned up. . the very prominent cable duct needs adding at the very least! 

The model is painted with Humbrol paints, the walkways were first painted pale grey and masked off prior to spraying the dark grey. . I think the effect is much better than decals. A wash of dark grey/brown oil was  applied and some forced panel lines and streaking airbrushed on. Decals are from the kit and are some of the thinnest Hasegawa decals I have ever used. . . care is needed with the larger items!

The model was built over a period of 4-5 weeks.

Drewe Manton

      

Photos and text © by Drewe Manton